•BHHB 


Stewart  Edward  White 


BANCROFT 
LIBRARY 

THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


THE  CABIN 


*'° 


t**~± 


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THE  CABIN 


BY 
STEWART   EDWARD   WHITE 


ILLUSTRATED 
WITH  PHOTOGRAPHS  BY  THE  AUTHOR 


GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y.,  AND  TORONTO 

DOIJBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 


ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED,  INCLUDING  THAT  O*  TRANSLATION 
INTO  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES,  INCLUDING  THE  SCANDINAVIAN 

COPYRIGHT,    IQIX,  BY  DOUBLEDAY,   PAGE   &  COMPANY 

PUBLISHED,    APRIL.     IQII 
COPYRIGHT,    1Q09,   IQIO,  BY  THE  PHILLIPS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 


PRINTED  AT  GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y.,  U.  S.  A. 


TfiE   EMr'£F 


DEDICATED 

TO  OUR  FRIENDS  OF 

PEACE  CABIN 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  "THE  MEADOW" 3 

II.  SHORT        ...                ....  13 

III.  THE  FIREPLACE         ....  .21 

IV.  THE  TREES 29 

V.  ON  THE  ACQUISITION  OF  TREASURE  ...  41 

VI.  ON  PIONEERING 49 

VII.  ON  THE  CONDUCT  OF  LIFE       ....  59 

VIII.  THE  STREAM 73 

IX.  THEOPHILUS 89 

X.  ON  BIRDS  AND  LIVING  THINGS         ...  97 

XI.  THE  MILL 119 

XII.  ON  STRANGERS  .......  133 

XIII.  OUR  NEIGHBOURS 143 

XIV.  THE  GUEST  CAMP 157 

XV.  THE  RIDGE 169 

XVI.  THE  BIG  COUNTRY 183 

XVII.  TROUT 199 

XVIII.  FLAPJACK 221 

XIX.  THE  ETHICAL  CODE  OF  CALIFORNIA  JOHN       .  237 

XX.  THE  SURVEYORS 249 

XXI.  THE  JOURNEY 273 

NOTE  281 


THE  MEADOW 


THE   CABIN 

i 

THE  MEADOW 

IN  JUNE  a  Sierra  elevation  of  6,500  feet  is  very 
interesting.  The  leaves  are  out  on  the  alders; 
the  dogwoods  are  in  full  bloom;  the  azalea  buds 
are  swelling;  the  spruce  trees  are  tipped  with 
fresh  green;  thousands  of  birds  fill  the  aisles  of 
the  great  forests  with  ecstatic  song.  Yet  here  and 
there  beneath  day-long  shade  lie  patches  of  snow 
from  whose  edges  trickle  little  streamlets.  The 
pine  needles  lie  pressed  as  sleek  as  a  boy's  Sundayed 
hair.  Exotic-looking  red  snowplants  raise  their 
wax-like  columns.  Water  flows  where  ordinarily 
water  is  not.  And  across  swards  where  later  a 
horse  can  walk  dry  shod,  now  he  plunges  mired 
to  the  knees.  Withal  the  sky  is  intense  blue;  the 
air  warm  to  the  skin,  but  cool  to  the  nostril;  all  the 
world  is  vibrant  as  a  ringing  crystal  with  the  joy 
and  life  of  the  Morning  of  the  Year. 
On  such  a  time  Billy,  old  California  John,  and  } 

3 


THE  CABIN 

rode  through  the  forest.  Our  way  led  along  a 
plateau  near  the  summit  of  a  great  mountain. 
We  were  on  a  gently  rolling  level  of  several  miles 
in  width,  rising  gradually  ahead  of  us.  To  our 
left  we  could  have  ridden  to  where  the  mountain 
fell  away  three  thousand  feet  precipitously.  To 
our  right,  we  could  equally  have  climbed,  had  we 
so  wished,  several  hundred  feet  more  to  the  top 
of  the  range,  whence  we  could  have  seen  abroad 
over  an  area  equal  to  many  kingdoms  of  the  earth. 
Neither  of  these  facts,  however,  had  any  evidences 
to  offer  us.  The  great  sugar  pines  and  firs  shut 
us  in;  the  streams  sang  across  our  path.  Occa 
sionally  we  pushed  through  a  leafy  thicket  that 
bathed  us  mysteriously  in  its  fresh  green;  occa 
sionally  we  mounted  a  little  hill  up  which  the  tall 
trees  marched  ahead  of  us  orderly.  The  smooth 
green  bear-clover  spread  its  mantle  over  the  slopes. 
Thickets  of  snowbrush  sprawled  in  the  sunlit  open 
ings.  The  horses  plodded  along  the  dim  trail, 
handling  each  foot  separately  after  the  wise  fashion 
of  the  mountain  animal.  Pepper,  the  Airedale, 
and  Tuxana,  the  bull  terrier,  patted  behind. 

All  at  once  Pepper  and  Tuxana  scurried  madly 
off  at  a  tangent  through  the  brush.  After  a  moment 
we  heard  the  excited  and  outraged  chattering  of 
a  squirrel. 

4 


THE  MEADOW 

"He  just  made  it,  and  now  he's  getting  rid  of 
his  scare  by  scolding  about  it,"  said  California 
John.  "He's  telling  them  what  he'd  do  if  he 
was  only  as  big  as  they  are.  Curious  what  a  dif 
ference  size  makes.  Imagine  an  island  where  all 
the  big  animals  would  be  little,  and  all  the  little 
animals  big!  I  bet  the  lion  would  hunt  his  hole 
as  quick  as  any  of  the  bunch!" 

"And  I  suppose  the  mouse  would  be  the  terror  of 
the  place,"  suggested  Billy. 

"No,  ma'am,"  replied  the  Ranger.  "A  skunk 
four  foot  high  would  be  the  boss  of  creation. " 

The  woods  road  wound  here  and  there,  then 
straightened.  A  long,  gentle  slope  led  us  slowly 
up.  Beyond  the  ridge  we  could  make  out,  not 
more  trees,  but  a  wide  opening  whose  nature  was 
as  yet  concealed. 

"That's  it,"  said  the  Ranger. 

In  a  moment  we  had  surmounted  the  shoulder 
of  the  slope. 

Before  us  stretched  a  long,  fair  meadow,  green 
as  new  fir  tips,  enamelled  with  flowers.  It  fell 
away  from  us  with  a  dignified  spaciousness,  to 
come  to  rest  in  a  group  of  aspens.  Behind  them 
reared  huge  sugar  pines,  and  all  about  stood  others, 
solemn  and  aloof,  drawing  back  in  courtesy  to  give 
room  for  this  gem  of  a  meadow  with  its  azalea 

5 


THE  CABIN 

fringe,  its  trickle  of  flowing  water,  its  flowers,  its 
floods  of  sunshine. 

California  John  reined  in  his  horse  and  threw 
his  leg  over  the  pommel  of  his  saddle. 

"Told  you  it  was  purty  nice,"  said  he. 

Billy  scrambled  off  her  horse. 

"Pretty  nice!"  she  sniffed  reproachfully. 

We  followed  her  example  and  set  out  to  explore. 
Directly  at  the  head  of  the  long  vista  had  been  built 
a  sort  of  elevated  seat  or  throne.  It  was  a  luxurious 
affair,  ingeniously  constructed  of  barrel  staves 
curved  to  fit  the  back.  A  group  of  young  trees 
shaded  it:  a  cool  breeze  sucked  up  the  opening  of 
the  meadow. 

"What  a  delightful  throne!"  cried  Billy,  "and 
how  well  it  is  placed!  Who  do  you  suppose  built 
it?  It  must  have  been  somebody  nice  to  have 
cared  for  this." 

"No,  ma'am,"  the  Ranger  replied  stolidly.  "It 
was  some  old  sheepman.  He  probably  didn't  care 
a  cuss  for  the  view,  but  he  could  watch  his  sheep 
better  from  here." 

To  the  left  of  the  throne,  and  slightly  in  the  hol 
low,  lurked  an  old  cabin.  It  proved  to  be  a  com 
modious  affair  built  of  twelve-inch  boards  and 
shakes.  Its  rooms  were  thick  with  the  forest 
litter;  its  foundation  timbers  were  rotted  and 

6 


THE  MEADOW 

awry;  its  roof  was  full  of  holes;  its  floor  sagged 
alarmingly. 

California  John  tapped  its  walls. 

"Still  good  as  ever,"  said  he.  "The  fellow  who 
built  it  moved  out  twenty-five  years  back.  But  he 
built  her  to  stay.  The  roof  leaks,  but  the  rafters 
ain't  sagged  an  inch.  The  foundation  and  the 
floor  are  about  give  out,  but  the  frame  is  all  right. 
There's  good  stuff  in  her  yet." 

"Why  did  he  move  out?"  asked  Billy. 

"Company  bought  his  claim  for  timber.  See; 
his  shed's  full  of  split  wood,  just  as  he  left  it  ready 
for  the  winter.  It  soon  gets  to  be  winter  here.  I've 
seen  ten  foot  of  snow  on  the  level." 

He  pointed  out  to  us  the  remains  of  an  old  picket 
fence. 

"That  was  his  old  truck  garden.  You'd 
never  think  that  had  been  ploughed  and 
planted." 

He  lifted  one  of  the  pickets  and  inspected  it 
thoughtfully. 

"Split  pickets  set  two  inches  apart,"  said  he; 
"think  of  the  work!  One  man  felled  the  trees  and 
split  them  out  one  by  one.  And  he  fenced  all  this 
meadow  too.  You  can  see  the  remains  of  that 
fence  down  by  the  lower  corner.  Splitting  rails 
is  hard  work.  And  that's  his  spring-house.  It's 

7 


THE  CABIN 

stood  all  these  years.     Come  on,  try  her.     Coldest, 
finest  water  in  these  mountains." 

We  dipped  our  rubber  cups  and  poured  a  silent 
libation  to  the  vanished  builder. 

"Seems  a  kind  of  waste,  somehow,"  said  the 
Ranger,  waving  his  hand  abroad.  "You  have  to 
keep  things  up,  or  they  go.  In  another  ten  years 
there  won't  be  anything  left  but  his  stumps  where 
he  cut  the  cedar.  And  they're  rotting."  He  re 
moved  his  old  hat  and  rubbed  his  head.  "He 
was  a  hard  worker.  And  now  all  his  works  - 

"  'Are  one  with  Nineveh  and  Tyre,9 '  I 
quoted. 

He  caught  my  allusion  instantly. 

"That's  so,"  said  he.  "He  is  in  purty  good 
company." 

We  walked  on  down  the  slope.  Unexpectedly 
the  vistaed  meadow  spread  out  to  right  and  left 
in  bays  and  estuaries  reaching  boldly  into  the  forest. 
It  proved  to  be  much  broader  than  it  had  seemed. 
Springs  trickled  here  and  there  from  the  hillside. 
The  aspens  clapped  their  innumerable  hands  in  an 
unending  applause.  At  the  lowermost  end  of  the 
meadow  a  stream  threaded  dense  willow  and  alder 
thickets.  We  could  hear  it  quietly  gurgling  and 
chuckling  to  itself  somewhere  in  the  shadow,  but 
we  could  not  penetrate  to  it. 

6 


THE  MEADOW 

"Runs  into  the  Creek  twenty  rod  down,"  ex 
plained  California  John. 

We  therefore  walked  those  twenty  rods.  The 
Creek  dashed  and  sang  and  gloried  over  the  rocks, 
foaming  and  leaping  from  pool  to  riffle  and  from 
riffle  to  pool.  The  other  bank  rose  steeply  up  and 
up,  and  still  up.  We  could  not  see  the  sky-line 
of  it,  for  it,  too,  was  clad  in  a  beautiful  and  mys 
terious  forest. 


SHORT 


n 

SHORT 

IN  THE  far  mountains,  seventy  miles  from  a  rail 
road  and  a  mile  up  in  the  air,  you  have  to  do 
with  what  you  can  get.  At  home  it  is  easy  to  order 
a  thing,  and  then  to  wait  briefly  until  that  thing  is 
accomplished.  Here  there  is  a  wide  gap  between 
the  conception  and  the  production. 

So  after  we  had  decided  that  the  meadow  must 
be  ours,  we  ran  against  unexpected  difficulty.  The 
old  pioneer's  cabin  would  not  do,  but  the  material 
of  it  would.  We  decided  to  build  more  accurately 
at  the  head  of  the  long  vista.  But  to  tear  down  one 
house  and  build  another  needs  more  than  one  pair 
of  hands. 

"We  must  hire  a  man  to  help  us,"  said  Billy, 
comfortably. 

Now  that  looks  simple.  But  in  the  mountains 
are  very  few  men,  living  far  apart,  and  each  busy 
at  his  own  affairs.  One  would  rather  work  for 
himself  than  for  another,  and  any  one  with  an  axe, 
a  horse,  or  a  pick  and  shovel  could  always  work 

13 


THE  CABIN 

for  himself.  But  also  the  mountain  people  are 
kindly  and  well-disposed  to  help.  From  mouth 
to  mouth  the  message  went,  until  at  last  I  learned  that 
on  a  specified  morning  a  man  open  to  employment 
would  meet  me  at  such  an  hour  on  a  certain  trail. 

I  was  there  early,  in  anticipation  of  a  wait.  He 
was  earlier,  sitting  at  ease  on  his  horse.  We  each 
gravely  named  the  other  by  way  of  salutation,  intro 
duction,  and  identification,  and  turned  our  animals' 
heads  toward  the  Meadow. 

The  predominant  notes  of  the  man  as  you  looked 
at  him  first  were  a  great  square  seal-brown  beard 
growing  to  the  cheek-bones,  and  brown  eyes  wide 
apart,  looking  from  beneath  a  square-chiselled  brow. 
So  massive  and  square-cut  was  this  effect  that  I 
could  imagine  it  quite  possible  to  talk  with  him  an 
hour,  and  then  to  go  away  carrying  an  impression 
of  a  big  strong-framed  man.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
Short  weighed  just  one  hundred  and  thirty  pounds, 
and  suffered  from  rheumatism.  Nevertheless,  the 
personality  of  the  man  was  expressed  rather  by  his 
Jove-like  head  than  by  his  slight  pain-racked 
body.  He  had  a  slow,  calculating,  stay-fast  way 
of  going  at  a  heavy  job  apparently  beyond  his 
strength,  that  somehow  carried  it  to  accomplishment. 

I  explained  to  him  what  I  wanted,  and  he  listened 
to  me  clear  through,  without  interruption  or  com- 

14 


SHORT 

ment.  Then  he  looked  the  old  cabin  over  very  thor 
oughly  from  top  to  bottom,  and  took  a  few  measure 
ments.  In  eight  words  he  pointed  out  the  folly  of 
our  proposed  location;  and  in  eight  more  gave  con 
clusively  good  reasons  for  another,  thirty  feet  farther 
up  the  hill. 

"All  we'll  need  is  shakes*  for  a  new  roof,  and  to 
clear  up  a  little,  and  my  tools.  We'll  need  a  team 
for  about  two  days." 

"Where'll  you  get  it?"  I  asked. 

"Do'no.     But  I'll  get  it." 

He  did.  At  the  end  of  three  days  he  appeared 
perched  atop  his  tool-chest,  a  keg  of  nails,  a  bed 
roll,  and  some  groceries.  We  could  hear  them  bang 
ing  through  the  woods  almost  as  soon  as  they  topped 
the  ridge.  About  every  hundred  feet  the  driver 
would  quite  cheerfully  clamber  down,  unhitch  one 
or  two  spans  of  mules  as  the  case  might  be,  and 
haul  to  one  side  a  greater  or  lesser  obstruction  to 
progress.  Sometimes  he  had  to  chop  a  way  through. 
Once  or  twice  he  hitched  a  span  to  the  rear  of  the 
wagon  in  order  to  drag  it  back  for  a  better  start. 
The  rate  of  speed  was  not  many  miles  an  hour, 
but  the  caravan  left  behind  it  a  cleared  way  where 
passage  there  had  been  none  before. 

That    driver    was    the    most  cheerful,  energetic 

*  Shakes,  i.  «.,  hand-riven  shingles. 

15 


THE  CABIN 

individual  ever  planted  in  a  dusty  way  of  life.  His 
form  was  long,  his  eye  twinkling,  his  voice  drawling, 
his  movements  deliberate  but  powerful,  and  his 
face  rough-hewn  after  the  Lincoln  manner.  Indeed, 
his  clean-shaven  lips  had  a  chronic  humorous  quirk 
to  them  such  as  one  might  imagine  illuminating  the 
country  circuit-lawyer  at  the  recollection  of  a  good 
story.  None  of  this  driver's  moments  seemed  dedi 
cated  to  ease.  He  hauled  stone  for  the  chimney, 
he  hauled  timbers  for  the  foundation,  he  generously 
hauled  "  dead  and  downs  "  out  of  the  way.  And  when 
he  couldn't  find  anything  more  to  haul,  he  put  up 
elaborate  feed-troughs  for  his  animals,  and  dug  fresh 
spring-holes,  and  generally  invented  things  to  do. 

In  the  mean  time  Short  had  made  him  a  camp. 
I  went  over  to  see  him,  and  found  him  examining 
one  by  one  his  tools.  Over  these  he  expanded. 
Each  had  its  particular  virtue,  its  individual  story. 
He  had  homely  reasons  for  the  selection  of  each 
variety,  and  he  delighted  to  give  them. 

These  days  of  machinery  have  rather  tended 
to  render  obsolescent  old-fashioned  carpentry.  So 
many  things  can  be  done  more  cheaply  at  the  mill 
or  the  shops;  so  many  devices  are  purchasable  at 
such  low  prices,  that  the  man  who  can  fashion  his 
appliances  for  himself  is  becoming  scarce.  Short 
knew  his  trade,  and  the  theories  of  it,  and  the  mathe- 

16 


SHORT 

matics  of  its  measurements  and  angles.  He  de 
lighted  in  its  exactitudes.  He  insisted  on  its  thor 
oughnesses.  He  approached  every  job  without 
haste,  in  due  deliberation  of  thought,  with  all  com 
pleteness  of  preliminary  preparation.  From  the 
raw  unplaned  material  he  fashioned  all  things,  even 
to  panelled  doors  which  the  casual  visitor  will  not 
believe  did  not  come  from  the  shops.  At  first  I 
thought  him  slow.  Then  I  changed  my  mind. 
Nothing  Short  called  finished  had  ever  to  be  done 
over.  The  Cabin  has  weathered  six  years  of  Sierra 
snows;  it  has  been  buried  actually  to  the  ridge  pole. 
Not  one  line  is  off  the  true;  the  windows  slide,  the 
doors  open  freely,  the  floor  has  not  warped  or  buckled. 

He  showed  me  a  short  heavy  clawed  instrument 
like  a  dwarfed  bent  crowbar  with  a  forked  tail. 

"That's  my  own  invention,"  said  he.  "It'll  pull 
off  those  boards  without  splitting  one  of  them  —  I 
don't  care  how  many  nails  the  old  fellow  used." 

A  moment  later  a  sharp  rip  startled  the  mules. 
The  first  board  of  our  lumber-pile-to-be  was  laid 
on  one  side. 


THE  FIREPLACE 


HI 

THE  FIREPLACE 

OF  COURSE  we  had  to  have  a  fireplace  —  that 
went  without  saying — and  it  must  be  of  stone. 
As  the  granite  everywhere  outcropped,  that  seemed 
to  be  a  simple  matter,  but  we  speedily  changed 
our  minds.  Any  granite  would  not  do.  Short  pro 
nounced  that  near  the  Meadow  of  a  most  inferior 
quality.  It  looked  all  right,  but  he  assured  us  that 
under  the  test  of  heat  it  would  spalt,  split,  flake,  and 
do  other  reprehensible  things.  So  we  extended  our 
investigations.  First  and  last,  afoot  and  horseback, 
we  covered  considerable  country  before  we  found 
the  proper  sort  of  outcrop.  It  looked  the  same  as 
any  other  to  me;  but  Short  was  entranced.  The 
frost  had  cloven  it  in  blocks  of  various  dimensions 
ready  for  our  handling.  One  piece  was  of  the  exact 
size  and  shape  for  a  hearthstone.  We  spent  a  good 
deal  of  labour  to  get  that  slab  intact  into  place.  We 
succeeded;  but,  as  I  remember  it,  the  thing  weighed 
nearly  two  tons! 

From  the  ledge  all  this  rock  had  to  be  dragged  to 

21 


THE  CABIN 

the  cabin  site.  We  let  the  horses  do  the  hauling, 
by  means  of  a  rough  "stone  boat";  but  the  heavy 
lifting  and  rolling  was  ours. 

Having  acquired  a  formless  pile  of  granite,  it  next 
became  necessary  to  gather  our  mortar  for  cementing 
the  stones  together.  Short  pronounced  a  mixture 
of  clay  and  salt  the  proper  thing. 

Now,  clay  on  a  Sierra  mountain  is  one  of  the 
scarcest  commodities  afforded  by  an  otherwise  bene 
ficent  nature.  We  found  our  little  bank  of  it  some 
four  miles  distant  and  quarter-way  down  the  steep 
mountain-side.  From  that  point  we  packed  it  in 
sacks  —  one  slung  either  side  the  pack-horse,  and 
one  atop  —  eight  miles  —  and  the  pick-and-shovel 
labour  of  digging  it  out!  As  for  the  salt,  that 
came  in  from  the  "outside." 

Having  thus,  by  dint  of  patient  labour,  gathered 
the  raw  materials,  we  were  ready  to  begin.  I  always 
like  to  speak  of  the  chimney  "Short  and  I  built." 
As  a  matter  of  cold  sober  truth,  I  did  not  have  much 
to  do  with  it.  To  be  sure  I  was  mightily  busy.  I 
carried  pails  of  water,  two  at  a  time,  from  the  spring, 
and  I  shovelled  over  that  mixture  of  salt,  clay,  and 
water  until  my  arms  ached;  and  lifted  chunks  of 
granite  until  my  back  cracked;  and  I  panted  and 
heaved  and  tugged  at  scaffolds  and  things  from 
early  morn  till  dewy  eve.  But  it  was  Short  who 

22 


THE  FIREPLACE 

laid  the  stone.  Short's  eye  gauged  craftily  the  slants 
and  angles  and  openings.  Short's  ingenuity  con 
structed  the  slides  and  levers  by  which  we  elevated 
the  heavier  stones  to  the  greater  heights.  And 
Short's  was  the  triumph  when  that  chimney  "drew" 
perfectly. 

But  before  we  reached  that  happy  result  we  dis 
covered  two  things;  that  we  would  need  a  lot  more 
granite,  and  that  the  increasing  difficulty  of  hoisting 
without  appliances  heavy  rocks  to  an  increasing 
height  was  going  to  extend  the  job  somewhere  into 
the  next  century. 

"I  know  of  an  old  sawmill  stovepipe,"  quoth 
Short.  "It's  down  the  mountain.  We  could  take 
it  apart  and  bring  it  up  here,  I  reckon." 

His  reckoning  was  correct.  We  acquired  that 
pipe,  and  in  due  time  finished  out  our  chimney 
with  it.  It  looks  a  little  queer,  until  you  get  used 
to  it;  but  it  draws  like  a  furnace.  We  cherish  the 
illusion  that  some  day  we  will  face  it  up  with  more 
stone.  That  is  one  of  the  delights  of  living  in  the 
wilderness;  there  are  so  many  things  that  some  day 
you  can  do! 

But  though  Short's  is  the  chimney,  the  mantel 
and  "fixin's"  are  mine.  I  did  them  while  he  was 
at  the  doors.  The  mantel  is  a  spacious  affair. 
Twin  columns  of  young  sugar  pine  ten  inches 

23 


THE  CABIN 

through,  and  with  the  bark  on,  support  a  shelf  of 
the  same  material.  The  shelf,  however,  is  a  log 
split  in  half  and  notched  to  fit  accurately  over  the 
pointed  tops  of  the  columns.  It  is  to  the  shelf  sur 
face  I  would  call  your  attention.  The  smoothing 
was  done  entirely  with  an  axe;  —  a  labour  of  nicety 
most  exhilarating  when  your  strokes  fall  surely,  and 
most  disgusting  when  a  blow  awry  spoils  an  hour's 
work. 

The  fittings  of  the  fireplace,  too,  are  worth  notice. 
When  we  built  the  chimney,  we  embedded  in  it  a 
support  for  a  crane.  This  was  made  of  a  piece  of 
wagon  tire.  The  crane  was  fashioned  from  the  same 
material.  From  it  depend  old-fashioned  pot-hooks 
and  hangers,  which  are  merely  miscellaneous  iron 
rods  in  disguise.  Three  utensils  inhabit  the  fire 
place:  a  heavy  squat  iron  kettle,  so  ludicrously 
Dutch  in  build  that  we  call  it  "Gretchen";  and  two 
iron  pots.  Every  evening,  even  in  summer,  is  cool 
enough  for  a  fire.  We  do  a  great  deal  of  cooking 
on  that  crane.  It  is  exceedingly  pleasant  to  hear 
Gretchen  sing  while  the  flames  leap  up  the  cavern 
of  the  chimney. 

For  the  chimney  is  a  cavern.  It  is  wide  and  high 
and  deep.  Short  built  it  to  take  comfortably  a 
three-foot  log.  Wood  is  everywhere  for  the  pleasant 
labour  of  chopping  it. 

H 


THE  FIREPLACE 

The  "fire-irons,"  with  one  exception,  are  all  home 
made.  Tongs  are  of  tough  oak  steamed  and  bent 
double.  The  kettle  lifter  is  an  alder  crook,  appro 
priately  cut  and  peeled.  The  poker  is  a  piece  of 
wild  cherry,  the  handsome  bark  left  on.  The  bel 
lows  is  a  small  rubber  tube  with  a  few  inches  of 
flattened  brass  pipe  inserted  at  one  end;  you  blow 
into  the  other.  The  "stand"  is  a  fork  of  beautiful 
red  manzanita,  the  ends  of  which  are  tacked  either 
side  one  of  the  mantelpiece  columns.  But  the  fire 
shovel  is  the  pride  of  the  lot. 

That  fire  shovel  is  an  example  of  the  preciousness 
of  treasure  trove  in  the  wilderness.  A  nail  back  of 
Shuteye  is  a  marvellous  thing.  A  tin  can,  whole 
and  in  good  repair,  becomes  an  invaluable  coffee-pot. 
An  abandoned  dishpan  is  appropriated  with  a  de 
light  inconceivable.  A  chance  piece  of  string  re 
joices  the  heart;  and  an  old  piece  of  paper  is  better 
than  fine  gold. 

So  impressed  is  this  truth  on  those  who  have  trav 
elled  much  away  from  civilization,  that  often  a  man 
becomes  a  sort  of  magpie  in  the  collection  of  attrac 
tive  things.  Billy  is  very  strong  on  bottles.  She 
never  can  bear  to  pass  one  on  the  trail,  but  will  dis 
mount  and  tuck  her  find  in  her  saddle-bag,  and  at 
camp  wash  it  carefully.  Flat  whiskey  flasks  fill 
her  with  a  particular  and  especial  delight.  We 

2$ 


THE  CABIN 

never,  that  I  remember,  used  bottles  for  any  purpose 
except  occasionally  to  shoot  at;  but  to  Billy  they 
looked  valuable. 

This  spirit  was  responsible  for  our  fire  shovel. 
We  discovered  it,  rusted,  without  a  handle,  bent 
and  disreputable,  in  a  heap  of  burned  debris.  It  was 
one  of  those  sheet-iron  affairs  with  a  fluted  edge, 
that  is  ordinarily  varnished  black  and  in  company 
with  a  coal  scuttle.  Why  anybody  brought  it  into 
the  mountains  in  the  first  place  would  be  difficult 
guessing.  Anyhow,  there  it  was.  It  "looked  valua 
ble,"  so  we  took  it  along.  Now  at  last  its  being  was 
justified.  We  knocked  off  the  rust,  straightened 
it  out,  fitted  to  it  a  beautiful  white  dogwood  handle, 
and  installed  it  in  a  position  of  honour.  Now  we 
point  with  pride  to  the  fact  that  we  are  the  only 
people  in  these  mountains  possessing  a  real  fire 
shovel. 


THE  TREES 


IV 

THE  TREES 

TNTIL  the  Cabin  was  built,  we  camped  near 
\^J  the  foot  of  the  meadow.  After  it  was  com 
pleted,  we  made  a  bedstead  among  the  azaleas. 
The  bedroom  we  saved  for  the  time  it  should  rain. 
It  almost  never  rained.  So  in  that  chamber  were 
tools  and  clothes  and  supplies  —  and  a  bedstead, 
just  to  prove  its  title. 

If  one  sleeps  out-of-doors,  he  lives  in  company 
with  the  trees  and  the  stars,  and  sees  the  birds  at 
their  morning  business. 

A  few  statistics  must  be  permitted  me,  for  only 
thus  can  I  convey  to  you  an  approximate  idea  of 
our  trees.  A  California  forest  counts  as  saplings 
the  full-grown  pines  of  our  Northern  woods.  Next 
the  Cabin  verandah  is  a  sugar  pine  twenty-seven 
feet  in  circumference  above  the  swell.  A  few  rods 
down  the  Meadow  stands  another,  seven  feet  in 
diameter  and  two  hundred  and  forty  feet  tall.  At 
the  end  of  the  vista  is  the  biggest  of  all,  a  giant  of 
two  hundred  and  eighty  feet.  These  figures  will  be 

29 


THE  CABIN 

better  understood  when  I  call  to  your  attention  the 
fact  that  our  Capitol  dome  at  Washington  is  about 
the  same  in  height.  Imagine  one  of  these  noble 
trees  in  Capitol  Square. 

Nor  am  I  offering  you  exceptions;  only  vigorous 
mature  trees.  Within  my  restricted  view  from  the 
one  window  near  which  I  am  writing  I  can  count 
twenty-seven  nearly  as  big.  The  hills  and  slopes 
and  valleys  are  cathedral-like  with  their  straight 
columns,  buttressed  and  massive,  upholding  the 
temple  of  the  Out-of-doors.  Some  of  their  trunks 
are  gray  and  venerable;  but  sorne,  especially  in  the 
light  of  late  afternoon,  are  warm  with  red  and  umber. 
In  contrast  to  the  green  cool  shadows  they  appear 
to  glow  with  an  incandescence  of  their  own. 

The  sugar-pine's  limbs  are  wide  and  spreading, 
with  a  sturdy  outward  up-holding  vigour.  From 
their  tips  depend  the  long  cones,  daintily,  like  the 
relaxed  fingers  of  a  bestowing  hand  at  the  end  of  a 
robed  arm.  So  always  the  sugar  pines  seemed  to  me 
the  Great  Ones  of  the  forest,  calm  and  beneficent, 
with  arms  stretched  out  in  benediction  of  the  lesser 
peoples. 

To  one  who  has  never  seen  them,  the  cones  are 
wonderful.  Such  cones  were  never  imagined  in 
advance  of  their  discovery.  It  means  little  to  say 
that  they  are  over  a  foot  and  a  half  in  length.  You 

30 


THE  TREES 

must  pick  one  up,  and  compare  it  mentally  with 
your  recollections  of  what  pine  cones  were  to  your 
childhood.  You  will  select  a  dozen  of  the  first  you 
see,  discard  some  for  others,  larger;  in  turn  exchange 
them,  until  at  last,  bewildered,  you  abandon  them 
all  in  a  maze  of  wonder.  Scattered  under  the  trees 
they  look  like  the  neglected  toys  of  the  Giant  children 
who  alone  are  fitted  to  play  in  this  enchanted  forest 
of  vastness.  And  suddenly  you  feel  very  small  and 
insignificant. 

Nor  is  the  fancy  entirely  dissolved  when  you  see 
them  in  place  on  the  trees.  They  do  not  grow  close 
to  the  limbs  or  the  sturdier  branches  after  the  manner 
of  the  other  conifers;  but  at  the  slenderest  tips. 
There  they  depend  gracefully,  their  weight  bending 
down  the  tips  in  a  long  curve,  swaying  slowly  to  and 
fro  in  every  breeze,  as  though  hung  there  like  so 
many  presents  for  those  who  mind  their  manners. 

That  part  of  it,  however,  is  a  delusion.  The  pine 
squirrel  and  the  Douglas  generally  get  the  cones, 
and  these  saucy,  busy  little  animals  do  not  mind 
their  manners  at  all.  Quite  to  the  contrary.  They 
clamber  aloft,  and  cut  loose  the  green  cones,  and  let 
them  fall,  reckless  of  whether  you  are  passing. 
Then  they  scamper  down  and  patiently  eat  away 
to  the  heart  in  search  of  the  nuts,  leaving  at  the  last  a 
wonderful  and  delicate  winding-stairway  of  a  core. 


THE  CABIN 

That  is  beautiful;  but  more  beautiful  still  is  to 
make  of  the  fallen  cones  a  fire  after  darkness  has 
thickened.  The  blaze  is  hot  and  grateful;  but  after 
it  dies  there  remain  ghosts  of  cones,  each  perfect 
in  every  detail,  glowing  incandescent,  a  last  ethereal 
appearance  before  they  fall  silently  to  the  earth  from 
which,  through  many  complicated  natural  processes, 
they  have  sprung.  That  little  pile  of  white  ashes 
represents  all  the  solids  they  owe  the  soil.  The 
rest  of  their  structure  they  drew  from  the  air  about 
them;  and  in  the  brief  glory  of  their  last  moments 
to  the  air  they  render  back  again  its  due. 

But  though  the  sugar  pines  are  the  most  spiritual, 
the  firs,  scarcely  inferior  in  size,  are  the  most  mysteri 
ous.  From  their  pointed  tops,  down  the  candle- 
flame-shaped  body  of  their  frond  to  the  rough 
wrinkled  bark  of  them  they  possess  a  thousand 
planes  to  catch  the  lights  and  shades.  From  golden- 
green  moulded  surfaces,  like  the  conventionalized 
foliage  of  the  metal  worker,  to  the  dark  velvet  soft 
shadows  of  unplumbed  depth  the  eye  passes.  At 
times  of  the  year  each  fan  branch  is  delicately  out 
lined  in  light  green  by  the  new  tips.  The  firs  are 
always  alive  with  birds  flashing  into  half-visibility, 
and  flirting  back  out  of  sight  again;  appearing  silently 
for  a  moment's  inspection,  and  melting  into  the 
shadow  as  though  dissolved;  balancing  on  the  tips 

32 


THE  TREES 

or  creeping  deviously  over  the  rough  and  wrinkled 
bark.  And  to  complete  the  effect,  the  firs  deck 
themselves  with  a  close-growing  bright  yellow- 
green  moss,  that  even  on  the  darkest  day  lightens 
the  forest  as  by  imprisoned  sunshine.  It  is  impos 
sible  to  exaggerate  either  the  brilliant  sun-effect  of 
this  moss  or  the  artistic  skill  of  its  distribution.  It 
does  not  grow  in  festoons,  but  close  to  the  bark  like 
a  fur  an  inch  or  so  in  depth.  Sometimes  it  occurs 
in  rings  around  the  trunk,  like  the  stripes  on  old- 
fashioned  stockings.  And  it  can  take  a  dead  twig 
or  limb,  and  so  completely  cover  it  as  to  glorify  it. 

Here  and  there  also  rise  the  buttressed,  fluted  red 
columns  of  the  fragrant  incense-cedar.  Exceedingly 
handsome  is  this  tree,  curious  with  its  fibrous  bark, 
grand  in  the  sturdy  strength  of  its  thickness  and  the 
blunt  taper  of  its  boles.  But  especially  is  it  estimable 
for  the  spicy  odour  of  it,  and  for  its  fragrance  as  it 
burns,  for  the  beautiful  colour  of  its  wood,  and  the 
ease  of  its  splitting  into  posts  and  rails.  A  few 
of  its  broad  fans  in  the  bed  bring  dreams  of 
green  forests. 

These  are  the  strong  of  the  woodland,  the  mature 
rigorous  trees  in  the  prime  of  life.  But  there  are 
also  the  old  men  and  the  youngsters.  Were  it  not 
for  them  the  forest  would  be  almost  too  austere  for 
the  comfort  of  human  residence. 

33 


THE  CABIN 

I  like  these  old  men,  still  straight  and  erect  before 
falling  at  last  to  Mother  Earth.  There  are  three  of 
them  near  the  entrance  to  our  domain,  just  before 
you  top  the  ridge  for  your  glimpse  over  to  the 
meadow-opening.  The  bark  has  all  long  since  fallen 
away,  and  the  smooth  bare  trunks  of  them  have 
weathered  to  the  gray  of  old  shingles.  In  the 
shadow  and  colour  of  the  forest  they  shine  forth  like 
phantoms  of  trees.  By  moonlight  they  are  par 
ticularly  ghostly. 

An  artist  I  know  used  occasionally  to  paint  the 
high  mountains.  His  colour  and  light  were  good, 
and  his  technique  not  to  be  questioned,  for  he  is  a 
man  of  the  finest  genius.  Yet  something  lacked. 
After  long  puzzling,  the  solution  stared  out  at  me 
from  the  canvas:  his  trees  were  all  green  and  vigor 
ous.  There  were  no  hoary  old  losers  of  the  struggle 
against  time;  no  "dead  and  downs";  no  accent  to  his 
forest.  For  these  stubs,  and  stripped  trunks,  and 
brown  dying  ancients  are  part  of  the  character  of 
the  woods.  With  them  removed  you  have  a  park,  not 
a  forest. 

But  if  these  supplement  the  mature  trees  by  the 
glory  of  their  nakedness,  the  younger  growths  afford 
the  intimacies  without  which  the  wilderness  would 
be  inhuman  and  unlivable.  The  thickets  of  fir 
and  pine  are  full  of  tepid  odours,  grateful  warmths, 

34 


THE  TREES 

humming  insects,  chirpy,  familiar  little  birds.  They 
shut  in  tiny  chambers  of  reverie  from  the  austerity 
of  the  great  forest.  Around  them  cluster  the  fra 
grant  azaleas,  the  burred  chinquapins,  the  thorny 
snowbrush,  the  manzafiita  —  all  the  smaller  affairs. 
They  live  below  the  august  giants  as  we  live  below 
the  stars,  attending  to  their  own  minute  affairs, 
engrossed  in  their  private  activities.  They  are 
in  the  thick  of  it.  Life  is  competitive,  earnest, 
struggling.  From  the  moment  they  push  their  way 
above  the  soil,  still  wearing  helmet-wise  the  shell 
of  the  nut  that  produced  them,  they  have  earnestly 
to  attend  to  the  business  of  existence.  At  first  their 
enemies  are  the  sheep,  the  dryness,  the  hoofs  of 
cattle,  the  cold  shadow.  Later  they  must  fight  each 
other.  Of  a  dense  thicket  but  one,  or  two  at  most, 
can  mature.  A  hundred  saplings  are  elbowing  each 
other  aside,  climbing  rapidly  up  toward  the  light 
and  air,  smothering  each  other,  reaching  jealously 
out  for  the  moisture  and  sustenance  which  shall  help 
them  in  the  struggle.  Those  that  are  overtopped 
turn  sickly  in  the  shade  of  their  stronger  brothers, 
finally  die,  fall,  rot  away,  and  are  fed  upon  by  the 
triumphant  victors. 

It  is  for  this  reason,  perhaps,  that  the  great  trees 
possess  their  aloof  air  of  supernal  calm.  The  strug 
gle  and  heat  of  combat  are  over  for  them.  They  have 

35 


THE  CABIN 

fought  their  way  clear  to  a  foothold,  to  the  calm 
appropriation  by  right  of  what  they  need.  From 
the  forest  they  have  nothing  to  fear.  Their  aloof 
ness  is  the  aloofness  that  comes  from  experience, 
from  the  philosophy  of  duty  done,  from  the  almost 
Buddhistic  contemplation  of  primal  sources. 

The  oftener  one  comes  back  to  the  forest,  the 
more  deeply  is  one  impressed  by  the  fact  that  these 
calm  green  people  have  entered  fully  into  the  over- 
philosophy  we  attain  to  only  in  snatches. 

Each  summer,  when  I  return  to  the  Cabin,  and 
look  about  at  the  well-remembered  aspects  of  our 
woodland,  the  intervening  eight  months  shrink 
painfully  as  the  measure  of  life.  It  is  but  yesterday 
that  we  packed  our  belongings,  locked  the  cabin 
door,  and  trailed  down  the  mountain  to  civilization. 
Yet  I  am  eight  months  older,  have  remaining  to  me 
just  that  much  less  of  life.  And  the  realization 
comes  to  me  that  the  succession  of  summers  will  be 
like  the  succession  of  days  here  —  where  one  sees 
the  Dawn  Tree  gilding  with  the  sunrise,  and,  behold! 
it  is  night  and  the  stars  are  out!  Time  as  a  dimen 
sion  does  not  exist;  its  passage  cannot  be  realized; 
its  duration  cannot  be  savoured.  And  the  residuum 
of  the  days  is  so  small.  Pleasures  enjoyed  dissolve 
away.  Only  remain  the  things  accomplished,  and 
they  are  few.  In  the  presence  of  the  Trees  we  look 

36 


THE  TREES 

upon  the  poor  little  handful  of  accomplishment  our 
eight  months  have  left  us,  and  we  are  ashamed. 

Little  by  little  the  commonplace,  rich  philosophies 
come  back  to  us  —  the  value  of  small  things;  the 
stability  of  the  object  created,  even  though  it  be  but 
a  new  broom  handle;  the  importance  of  taking  your 
advantage  from  routine  work,  since  there  is  so  much 
of  it  to  be  done;  the  desirability  of  fixing  your  enjoy 
ment  on  means  rather  than  ends,  for  means  occupy 
the  greater  hours,  and  ends  are  but  moments.  These 
things  from  one  point  of  view  are  tiresome;  from 
another  they,  like  all  the  simple  philosophies  of  life, 
are  vases  whose  beauties  show  only  where  they  are 
filled  with  experience  and  dear-bought  wisdom.  In 
the  hurry  and  confusion  of  life  the  vases  are  emptiedc 


ON  THE  ACQUISITION  OF  TREASURE 


ON  THE  ACQUISITION  OF  TREASURE 

WHEN  the  frame  and  roof  of  the  Cabin  were 
completed,  Short  left  us  with  the  empty 
shell. 

"I  reckon  you  can  get  along  all  right  now,"  said 
he,  simply. 

By  fortune  we  came  to  the  Cabin  from  the  Trail 
and  not  from  the  towns.  So  we  began  life,  quite 
contentedly,  on  the  simplest  terms.  All  our  house 
hold  goods,  our  personal  effects  and  our  food  sup 
plies  we  had  been  used  to  packing  on  a  single  mule. 
When  that  mule  was  unloaded,  we  were  established 
and  at  home. 

Therefore  we  did  not  feel  the  instant  necessity 
of  the  numberless  conveniences  which,  little  by 
little,  as  mood  and  leisure  served,  we  have  construct 
ed  for  ourselves.  We  were  then  camping;  and 
camping  as  we  do  it  is  such  an  easy  matter!  When 
the  Cabin  was  done,  we  cut  ourselves  a  fresh  supply 
of  fir  and  cedar  boughs,  hung  up  our  camp  kit, 
arranged  our  food  bags,  and  settled  down  quite 

41 


THE  CABIN 

happily.  The  only  immediate  innovation  was  a 
sheet-iron  stove,  which  rode  in,  ludicrously  aslant, 
on  Flapjack's  back. 

Of  course  the  meadow  had  to  be  fenced.  Our 
horses,  long  accustomed  to  the  Trail,  would  graze 
contentedly  for  some  time;  but,  sooner  or  later, 
their  bellies  full  and  their  minds  empty,  the  desire 
for  travel  would  seize  upon  them.  By  luck  the 
vanished  builder  on  the  meadow  had  left  behind 
him  some  split  cedar  posts.  We  lashed  these  either 
side  a  pack  animal,  and  distributed  them.  Then 
we  dug  holes,  painfully,  one  at  a  time,  with  more 
or  less  luck  in  getting  down  to  a  proper  depth 
through  the  rocky  soil.  After  that  we  strung  the 
barbed  wire.  It  had  come  in,  two  rolls  of  it,  well 
wrapped  in  sacking  to  avoid  gashing  the  animal  that 
bore  it.  When  we  removed  the  sacking,  it  showed 
all  its  teeth  and  gave  its  evil  propensities  full  swing. 

I  hate  barbed  wire.  From  the  time  you  first 
string  it  out,  when  you  stretch  it,  nail  it,  mend  it, 
it  is  full  of  cussedness.  No  matter  how  gingerly  you 
handle  it,  it  will  switch  and  jerk  through  your  hands, 
it  will  snatch  at  your  flesh,  it  will  snap  viciously 
at  you  like  a  scorpion.  And  when  it  is  up,  it  lies 
in  wait  like  a  trap.  Probably  more  good  horses 
have  been  blemished  and  ruined  by  barbed  wire 
than  by  any  other  single  agency. 

42 


ON  THE  ACQUISITION  OF  TREASURE 

But  it  turns  cattle  and  it  is  quickly  strung.  The 
latter  point  made  it  obligatory  in  our  case.  The 
only  alternative  would  have  been  a  rail  fence;  and 
the  rails  were  still  growing  in  the  trees. 

After  the  fence  was  up,  and  the  gates  and  corral 
built,  there  remained  apparently  nothing  more  to 
do  but  to  enjoy  life  in  pleasant  idleness. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  have  been  doing  things 
ever  since.  As  fast  as  one  thing  is  completed, 
another  suggests  itself.  And  a  little  at  a  time  ac 
complishes  a  great  deal  in  the  long  run.  In  the  four 
summers  we  have  spent  here  we  have,  without  a 
dollar  of  "hired  help,"  written  a  very  respectable 
list  of  accomplishment.  Two  bedsteads,  a  bureau, 
eight  chairs,  three  tables,  shelves  and  cupboards, 
a  meat  safe,  a  bath-house,  a  barn  with  two  stalls, 
a  spring  boxed,  a  "cold  storage/'  a  drain,  a  dog 
kennel,  a  flagpole,  saddle  racks,  nine  hundred  cedar 
rails  split  and  in  place,  road  improvements,  the 
meadow  ditched,  and  one  by  one  a  slow  accumula 
tion  of  treasures  from  the  distant  world  outside  — 
these  have  kept  us  busy  and  contented. 

Starting  with  nothing,  each  new  acquisition  is 
indeed  a  treasure.  A  thing  is  valuable  in  direct 
proportion  to  the  amount  of  time  you  have  spent 
on  it.  At  home  you  hire  a  carpenter  to  build  you 
a  stall,  and  you  appreciate  it  as  a  convenience.  Here 

43 


THE  CABIN 

you  fell  your  fir,  hew  it  square,  carry  it  to  place  on 
your  shoulders,  nail  it  home  with  nails  packed  eighty 
miles.  The  days  are  full,  and  the  labour  exhausting, 
so  you  are  at  it  only  two  or  three  hours  a  day.  When 
the  stall  is  done,  you  celebrate  that  fact,  and  ever  after 
you  cast  a  friendly  and  appreciative  glance  at  all  stalls. 

That  is  the  principle  applicable  to  all  things.  It 
is  a  truism  that  the  loss  of  a  catboat  bought  from 
the  clerk's  salary  is  more  of  a  catastrophe  than  the 
wreck  of  the  yacht  purchased  casually  by  the  mil 
lionaire.  The  catboat  represents  four  months; 
the  yacht  perhaps  ten  minutes,  gauging  by  the 
incomes  of  the  two  men.  Time  is  value. 

This  will  explain  the  pride  Billy  takes  in  her 
table  service.  It  is  only  white  enamel  ironware 
edged  with  blue,  but  it  succeeded  tin  plates  and 
kettles  on  the  table.  And  let  this  be  noted:  when 
you  have  filed  an  axe  for  some  years,  you  can  hardly 
tear  yourself  away  from  a  brand-new  ball-bearing 
grindstone,  carried  in  from  the  railroad  terminus 
by  horses. 

Let  the  principle  sink  in.  Then,  with  due  re 
spect  approach  these  facts  which  I  will  detail  to  you. 
And  remember  that  this  catalogue  of  possessions  was 
not  written  all  at  once;  but  item  by  item,  by  chance, 
good  fortune,  careful  planning,  by  long,  hot,  dusty 
journeys,  by  the  courtesy  of  friends  coming  our  way. 


ON  THE  ACQUISITION  OF  TREASURE 

Each  has  had  its  day  of  especial  and  particular 
cherishing,  each  has  been  envied  and  admired  by 
those  who  had  it  not,  each  has  been  an  inspiration 
to  further  acquisition. 

Our  kitchen  has  a  genuine  double  boiler  —  you 
who  have  had  jealously  to  watch  lest  the  mush 
burned,  please  take  notice.  It  has  a  cake  lifter, 
a  large  dishpan,  and  a  brace  of  saucepans.  There 
is  an  iron  wash-tub  and  a  scrubbing  board. 
We  have  a  glass  kerosene  lamp  and  two  extra 
chimneys.  A  looking-glass  hangs  uncracked  in 
a  good  light.  And  if  you  had  improvised  for  two 
years  with  an  axe,  a  hatchet,  and  a  cross-cut  saw 
all  items  of  carpentry  and  woodwork,  you  would 
appreciate  the  fact  that  we  have  a  sledge  and  wedges 
for  splitting,  a  crowbar,  an  auger,  blasting  powder 
and  fuse,  a  rip-saw,  a  square,  a  plane,  chisels,  wood- 
rasps,  hoe,  rake.  With  these  one  can  accomplish 
wonders. 

And  each  was  brought  in  and  exhibited  and  tried 
triumphantly  as  though  it  had  been  a  Christmas 
present. 


45 


ON  PIONEERING 


VI 

ON  PIONEERING 

IN  THE  gradual  evolution  of  our  home  on  the 
meadow  we  have  come  very  close  to  genuine 
pioneering.  It  is  easy  to  play  at  such  things:  a 
few  tents  by  a  lake  —  with  the  farmer's  permission  — 
looks  very  like  camping,  and  is  often  good  enough 
fun.  We  have  many  illustrious  examples  of  the 
men  who  have  gone  out  into  the  woods  to  cut  down 
their  weekly  tree.  Most  of  us  like  to  relieve  our 
guides  of  a  great  deal  of  the  cooking,  the  chopping, 
the  packing,  the  paddling.  This  arises  from  a 
healthy  desire  to  stretch  our  muscles,  take  exercise, 
play  at  doing  those  things  which  are  a  guide's  every 
day  business.  In  so  doing  we  may  work  very  hard; 
that  is  not  the  point. 

But  whatever  we  do,  in  such  circumstances,  is 
the  manifestation  of  a  spirit  of  play:  and  the  proof 
of  it  is  that  at  any  moment  we  can  deliver  back  these 
activities  into  professional  hands.  And  even  when, 
as  often  in  more  civilized  communities,  some  of  us 
elect  to  put  up  our  own  workshop,  or  build  our 

49 


THE  CABIN 

furniture,  or  even  construct  our  house,  it  is  a  matter 
of  deliberate  choice.  The  carpenter  is  always  there 
for  the  hiring. 

But  in  pioneer  conditions  a  man  constructs  be 
cause  in  no  other  way  can  he  acquire  those  things  of 
which  he  stands  in  desire  or  in  need.  He  can  hire 
no  help;  he  has  access  to  no  shops.  As  for  tables, 
chairs,  fences,  they  are  there  in  the  standing  timber 
waiting  to  be  bodied  forth  by  the  crude  tools  at  his 
command.  The  chimney  is  scattered  away  among 
the  rock  outcrops;  the  road,  hidden  among  obstacles, 
is  waiting  to  be  defined  and  made  passable;  the  few 
comforts  he  will  grow  to  need  are  at  the  other  end  of 
the  long  trail.  If  this  man  is  naturally  a  savage, 
he  dwells  beneath  crude  shelters  under  the  trees. 
A  week  after  he  is  gone,  little  remains  to  indicate 
where  he  has  abided.  But  if  he  possesses  in  his 
soul  the  yeast  of  civilization,  then  most  surely, 
little  by  little,  as  well  as  he  may,  he  will  construct 
and  accumulate  the  customary  appurtenances  of 
that  state.  It  is  a  necessity  of  his  nature.  In  his 
surroundings  he  expresses  man's  instinctive  desire 
for  a  habitation  and  certain  orderly  well-made 
things.  If  he  likes  the  work,  so  much  the  better;  but 
he  may  detest  it.  That  seems  to  make  no  difference. 

So  in  our  summer  home  we   find   ourselves  very 
much  in  the  position  of  those  early  backwoodsmen. 


ON  PIONEERING 

If  we  want  a  thing,  we  have  to  make  it  or  go  and 
get  it.  Nobody  can  be  had  to  do  it  for  us  or  carry 
it  to  us.  When  we  split  rails  or  chop  wood  or  dig 
ditches,  it  is  not  by  way  of  posing  for  the  strenu 
ous  life,  but  because  we  need  those  things.  It 
would  never  occur  to  us  to  undertake  such  affairs 
at  home.  We  are  in  a  way  a  self-contained  com 
munity.  We  cook,  do  our  laundry,  perform  our 
daily  tasks,  because  if  we  did  not  things  would  run 
down.  It  happens  that  we  like  all  this,  which  is 
lucky.  Even  if  such  tasks  were  more  or  less  of  a 
grind,  I  think  we  should  still  come  to  the  Cabin. 
In  that  event  we  should  consider  them,  like  the  dis 
comforts  of  the  wilderness,  only  a  just  price 
to  pay. 

Of  course  at  any  time  we  can  saddle  up  and  in 
ten  days  be  back  where  flourishes  the  starched  collar. 
That  choice  is  always  open  to  us.  A  similar  choice 
was  open  to  any  wilderness  dweller.  There  has 
always  been  a  highly  intensive  civilization  to  which 
to  return.  The  pioneer  need  not  have  left  the 
towns.  He  did  so  because  he  disliked  the  life, 
or  from  restlessness,  or  a  spirit  of  adventure,  or  in 
search  of  opportunity.  The  altruistic  idea  of  open 
ing  up  a  new  country  was  not  one  of  his  considera 
tions;  or  it  was  of  secondary  importance. 

In  this  manner,  without  a  conscious  intention  of 

Si 


THE  CABIN 

so  doing,  we  have  to  a  certain  extent  succeeded  in 
getting  to  the  inside  of  a  pioneer  existence.  Ob 
jectively  it  has  always  seemed  to  many  people 
constricted,  narrow,  hard,  without  inspiration,  with 
out  material  of  which  to  construct  a  vantage  point 
for  the  spiritual  insight.  Yet  when  approached 
by  the  regular  road,  this  is  soon  proved  untrue. 

It  is  astonishing  to  discover  the  physical  possibili 
ties  of  even  the  ordinary  things  we  take  for  granted. 
We  are  apt  to  look  upon  a  mechanic  as  plying  a 
mechanical  trade;  that  is  to  say,  one  whose  routine 
makes  very  little  call  on  his  intelligence.  It  needs 
but  one  essay  at  the  simplest  of  his  jobs  to  discover 
the  woeful  error.  Even  aided  by  good  instruction, 
we  find  our  wits  taxed  to  the  utmost  in  figuring  out 
reasons,  expedients,  and  necessities  of  method;  and 
properties,  limitations,  and  possibilities  of  materials. 
To  correlate  a  half-dozen  of  the  simplest  opera 
tions  so  accurately  as  to  produce  a  finished  work 
manlike  result  means  a  lot  of  thinking  and  sums  up 
considerable  concrete  knowledge  gained.  And  it 
is  astonishing  how  interesting  that  knowledge  is, 
and  how  important  it  turns  out  to  be  in  appli 
cation  to  a  hundred  different  things. 

A  rail  fence  is  a  common  enough  affair.  The 
theory  is  simple:  You  fell  a  tree;  cut  it  into  proper 
lengths;  split  those  lengths  into  rails  by  means  of 

5* 


ON  PIONEERING 

iron  wedges;  carry  them  to  place;  and  arrange  them 
in  a  zigzag. 

What  happens  ?  In  the  first  place,  you  must  know 
how  to  use  an  axe.  There  are  few  implements 
more  satisfactory  to  handle  well;  and  few  more 
chancy,  awkward,  and,  yes,  dangerous,  to  a  green 
horn.  A  blow  at  a  wrong  angle  will  glance  and 
twist  the  helve  from  your  hand  to  injure  an  innocent 
bystander  or  gash  your  leg  deep.  This  is  a  very 
common  accident.  Unless  the  blade  hits  always 
in  the  same  place  you  will  only  "chew  into  the 
wood/'  instead  of  cutting  clean  chips.  A  smooth 
surface  to  your  kerf  means  that,  at  full  strength, 
you  can  hit  to  within  an  eighth  of  an  inch  of  where 
you  want  to,  and  with  a  heavier  implement  than  a 
golf  stick.  You  must  further  know  how  best  to 
deliver  your  strength,  when  to  increase  the  speed 
of  your  stroke,  how  to  use  your  shoulders.  Other 
wise  the  expenditure  of  energy  is  excessive,  and  you 
soon  tire  to  exhaustion.  Furthermore,  your  axe 
must  be  kept  razor-sharp  —  the  cheerfully  nicked, 
rounded  edge  of  the  old  wood-pile  weapon  won't 
do  at  this  work.  The  relations  of  steel  to  stone 
and  file  must  be  mastered.  If  you  think 
rubbing  one  against  the  other  is  about  all  that  is 
required,  you  have  much  earnest  cogitation  still  to 
come. 

53 


THE  CABIN 

Perhaps  you  may  find  some  woodsman  miracu 
lously  endowed  with  powers  of  explanation  who  will 
tell  you  some  of  these  things.  If  so,  the  information 
will  be  contained  in  hints,  illuminating  only  through 
your  own  observation.  But  more  likely  you  will 
have  to  try,  and  then  figure  a  bit,  and  watch  some 
body,  and  figure  a  bit  more,  and  then  try  it  again, 
until  finally  by  dint  of  both  thought  and  practice 
you  will  arrive  at  skill. 

The  axe  plays  but  a  part  in  the  felling  of  your 
tree.  You  must  with  it  cut  a  "notch"  on  the  side 
toward  which  you  wish  it  to  fall.  A  certain  knowl 
edge  of  probable  weights  of  limbs  and  slant  of 
trunks  as  affecting  centres  of  gravity  is  here  neces 
sary.  Then  from  the  other  side  you  manipulate 
the  cross-cut  saw. 

It  looks  very  simple  as  you  watch  a  woodsman  at 
work.  He  draws  the  saw  back  and  forth  horizon 
tally  until  he  can  insert  a  wedge  in  the  crack.  Then 
he  continues  work  until  the  tree  falls. 

But  in  the  essay  you  find  that  it  is  quite  a  trick  to 
keep  the  saw  running  straight  across.  It  tends  to 
sag  at  the  ends,  so  your  cut  is  in  a  down-drooping 
curve.  This  in  time  binds  the  instrument  so  that 
even  wedges  cannot  help  your  utmost  strength  in 
pulling  it  through.  As  for  throwing  a  tree  in  any 
direction  by  leaving  more  or  less  fibre  on  one  side 

54 


ON  PIONEERING 

or  the  other,  that  is  a  matter  you  would  better  smoke 
a  pipe  over. 

Once  down,  you  measure  off  your  trunk  and  start 
to  cut  it  into  lengths.  The  saw  almost  immediately 
binds  fast.  You  must  find  out  why;  and  after  your 
discovery  of  the  reason,  you  must  invent  a  remedy  — 
unless  you  have  been  remarkably  observing  when 
watching  the  same  operation  in  the  lumbering.  The 
splitting  into  rails,  also,  is  full  of  minor  problems 
having  to  do  with  the  run  of  grain,  the  action  of 
wedges,  and  the  like.  Perhaps  you  will  do  as  I  did 
first  —  expend  considerable  preliminary  work  only 
to  find  that  the  tree  you  have  prepared  is  cross- 
grained  and  will  not  split  at  all!  Then  you  will 
learn  to  diagnose  your  timber  before  you  start  to 
fell  it. 

And  by  the  time  you  lay  aside  your  first  rail,  you 
have  done  as  much  actual  mental  work,  both  in 
observing  phenomena  and  in  figuring  from  cause 
to  effect  along  new  lines,  as  you  would  have  ex 
pended  in  following  somebody's  philosophy.  In 
addition  you  have  entered  into  new  relations  with 
a  whole  new  series  of  facts. 

The  application  of  this  is  true  all  along  the  line. 
There  are  thick  technical  books  on  carpentry,  books 
that  require  as  close  study  as  any  course  in  college. 
In  the  backwoods  one's  curriculum  is  wide  even  on 

55 


THE  CABIN 

the  side  of  mere  practicability.  A  man  must  be 
constantly  learning,  and,  as  he  learns,  the  various 
concealed  properties  of  the  possibilities  and  inten 
tions  of  the  complicated  world  about  him  become 
evident  to  him.  He  enters  realms  which  in  civiliza 
tion  are,  by  common  consent,  delivered  intact  into 
professional  hands. 


ON  THE  CONDUCT  OF  LIFE 


VII 
ON  THE  CONDUCT  OF  LIFE 

/CALIFORNIA  JOHN  was  away  on  forest  busi- 
\^A  ness  most  of  the  summer.  Occasionally^ 
however,  he  would  ride  over  to  see  us.  One  such 
visit  rises  in  my  mind  as  particularly  d  propos  to 
the  remarks  of  the  last  chapter. 

I  was  cross-cutting  a  big  cedar  log,  stooping  over 
as  the  long  saw  bit  lower  and  lower;  working  eagerly. 
The  old  man  rode  up  on  his  shining  sorrel  horse, 
Star,  with  his  inlaid  silver  bit,  his  rawhide  bridle, 
and  his  beautiful  carved-leather  saddle.  Younger 
rangers  now  go  in  for  the  plain  and  business-like, 
and  profess  more  or  less  contempt  for  the  "fancy 
fixings,"  but  California  John  was  of  the  old  school. 
He  nodded,  flung  one  leg  over  his  saddle  horn,  and 
watched  me  some  moments. 

"  Hard  work,"  he  proffered  after  a  time. 

I  nodded  back,  I  had  no  wind  left  for  conver 
sation. 

"You  had  that  sawed  way  through  ten  minutes 
ago,"  said  he,  after  a  time. 

59 


THE  CABIN 

In  sheer  astonishment  at  this,  I  quit  work  and 
stood  upright. 

"Sawed  way  through!"  I  repeated  stupidly. 

"Yes  —  in  your  mind,"  said  he.  "Your  mind's 
been  sawin'  that  log  through  a  plumb  lot  quicker 
than  your  saw.  And  you've  been  just  humpin* 
tryin'  to  catch  up.  That's  what  makes  it  hard 
work.  There's  your  mind  standin'  first  on  one  foot 
and  then  on  the  other,  plumb  distracted  waitin'; 
and  there's  your  body  all  out  of  breath  hustlin'  and 
strainin'  to  catch  up.  That's  what  makes  it  such 
hard  work.  You're  tirin5  yourself  down,  boy.  You 
got  to  keep  your  body  and  your  mind  together  on 
the  job.  Put  on  brakes,  and  don't  get  a  thing  done 
before  it  is  done." 

I  quit  sawing  then  and  there,  for  I  saw  California 
John  was  in  a  dissertative  mood,  and  that  is  worth 
much  more  than  any  number  of  cedar  rails. 

"That's  the  way  to  enjoy  yourself,"  said  the  old 
Ranger,  comfortably.  "  Trouble  is,  when  a  man 
starts  out  to  do  a  thing,  he  just  nat' rally  sees  it  all 
done  before  his  eyes,  and  he  strains  himself  day 
in  and  out  till  it  is  done.  And  mebbe  it  takes  a 
long  time  to  do  —  a  month  or  two,  say.  And  he 
hasn't  had  any  fun  with  himself  at  all  endurin'  of 
all  that  time.  He's  just  plumb  wasted  a  month  or 
two  out  of  his  life;  and  he  probably  won't  get  but  one 

60 


ON  THE  CONDUCT  OF  LIFE 

life  —  here.  A  man  don't  want  to  give  a  cuss 
whether  a  thing  gets  done  or  not,  but  just  whether 
he  keeps  workin'  along  at  it.  If  he  does  that,  it's 
bound  to  get  done,  and  without  worryin'  him.  And 
he  ain't  so  plumb  feverish  all  the  time." 

He  slid  out  of  his  saddle  and  squatted  down  by 
my  cedar  log. 

"If  you  don't  come  to  that  way  of  thinkin',  sooner 
or  later  you  get  this  here  nervous  prostration/' 
said  he.  "No  manner  of  doubt  of  it.  The  world's 
chuck  full  of  tiresome  jobs  that  don't  really  mean 
nothin'  -  -  washin'  clothes,  and  sweepin'  floors,  and 
choppin'  wood  that  you  burn  up,  and  generally 
millin'  around  in  a  circle  that  don't  get  nowhere." 

"Routine  work,"   I   suggested. 

"Precisely.  A  man  gets  a  notion  that  these  jobs 
are  wastin'  his  valuable  time;  he  begins  to  hustle  to 
get  them  behind  him  and  out  of  the  way.  That 
means  he  does  a  poor  job,  and  gets  all  wrought  up 
and  impatient,  and  tries  to  get  in  a  week's  work 
by  sundown." 

He  reached  up  to  rub  his  horse's  soft  nose. 

"  We  got  to  make  up  our  minds  that  a  lot  of  our 
life  is  taken  up  with  this  routine  work  —  same  thing 
over  and  over,  or  work  that  don't  make  nothing. 
So  we  ought  to  have  sense  enough  to  find  real  livin' 
in  them  as  well  as  in  doin'  real  things.  Any  job's 

61 


THE  CABIN 

srot  a  lot  of  fun  in  it,  if  you  ain't  in  too  devil  much 
of  a  hurry  to  finish  it.  You  got  to  do  the  job  any 
way;  so  you  might  just  as  well  get  the  fun." 

We  drifted  into  a  discussion  of  the  various  phil 
osophies  of  life.  I  asked  him  if  he  had  always  been 
contented  to  live  his  kind  of  life  in  the  mountains. 

"Well,"  said  he,  "when  I  was  younger  I  used  to 
figure  a  good  deal  whether  I  was  doin'  all  I  ought  to. 
Seems  as  if  a  man  ought  to  do  the  best  he  can.  He 
must  have  been  put  here  for  some  reason.  It's 
hard  to  tell  what  you're  supposed  to  do.  Now 
some  books*  I've  read  claim  a  man  ought  to  make 
the  very  best  out  of  himself  he  can,  develop  himself 
all  round,  and  get  as  high  up  in  the, scale  as  he  can. 
Then  there's  others  that  claim  he  ought  to  get  out 
and  do  something  definite  —  hustle  along  human 
progress  —  or  he  ain't  no  good  at  all.  What  do 
you  think  about  it?" 

"I  suppose  a  man  ought  to  build  something  in 
this  world." 

"  What  was  that  you  said  a  while  back  on  Nineveh 
and  Tyre  ?"  asked  the  old  man  quizzically.  "There 
was  the  Moorish  raid  into  Spain"  — he  suddenly 
interjected  one  of  his  astonishing  surprises  in  general 
information  — "  that  was  a  mighty  serious  affair 

*California  John,  in  spite  of  the  apparent  evidence  of  his  vernacular,  was  a 
voracious  and  rather  intelligent  reader  during  the  winter  months. 

62 


ON  THE  CONDUCT  OF  LIFE 

at  the  time  —  worth  headlines  way  across  the  page, 
with  all  sorts  of  murders,  speeches,  oppressions, 
and  so  forth.  As  near  as  I  can  make  out  the  total 
results  was  a  sort  of  old  summer  resort  built  of 
adobe  mud." 

"Adobe?"  I  repeated,  puzzled. 

"I  forget  her  name.  Place  named  after  her  near 
Los  Angeles." 

"Oh!  The  Alhambra!"  I  cried  with  a  burst  of 
amusement. 

"  Yes.     Well,  what's  the  use  of  doin'  things  ? " 

I  offered  no  immediate  answer  to  this,  so  the  old 
man  went  on. 

"Another  thing:  what  did  the  Lord  make  such  an 
everlasting  variety  of  a  world  for,  anyway  ?  Ever 
think  of  that?" 

"Never  did.     What  of  it?" 

"  Just  this.  I  don't  care  what  you  know,  or  how 
big  a  head  you've  got,  or  what  sort  of  an  education, 
there's  about  four  million  things  you  don't  know 
nothin'  about.  Somebody  may  know  it,  but  you 
don't.  You  can't  take  up  anything,  I  don't  care 
what  it  is  or  where  it  is,  without  getting  a  whole 
heap  of  new  knowledge  about  things  in  the  world, 
and  their  natur',  and  how  the  cussed  things  act. 
A  thing  looks  simple  and  dead  easy  to  do  —  and  it 


ain't." 


THE  CABIN 

I  nodded,  my  thoughts  on  my  recently  and  pain 
fully  acquired  experience  with  cedar  rails. 

"The  Lord's  scattered  things  to  learn  all  over 
everywhere.  I  don't  care  what  you  pick  up,  there's 
enough  there  to  take  all  the  strength  of  your  mind 
*br  a  while,  anyway." 

"  'The  world  is  so  full  of  a  number  of  things 
I  am  sure  we  should  all  be  as  happy  as  kings,' " 

I  quoted. 

"Who  said  that?"  asked  California  John  like 
a  flash. 

"Stevenson,"  said  I. 

"Well,  he's  dead  right.  Only  I  thought  I  was 
the  only  fellow  that  had  thought  of  it,"  said  the  old 
man  ruefully.  "There's  quite  a  number  of  things; 
and  to  my  notion  in  His  eyes  they're  all  one  about 
as  important  as  another. 

"Oh,  hold  on!"  I  cried.  "Do  you  mean  to  say 
that  you  really  believe  it's  as  important  to  ditch 
that  meadow  as  to  dig  the  Panama  Canal?" 

"Not  to  Roosevelt,"  replied  California  John 
quietly.  "  Mebbe  to  me." 

He  let  this  sink  in. 

"That's  why  the  Lord  made  such  an  everlasting 
variety  of  a  world  for,  so  every  man  could  find  his 
own  kind  of  knowledge.  There  used  to  be  a  fellow 

64 


ON  THE  CONDUCT  OF  LIFE 

down  at  Toll  House,  who  had  been  reading  these 
health  magazines  until  he  began  to  eat  nuts  and 
raisins  and  olive  oil  and  pine  sawdust  —  and  not 
much  else.  Old  Doc  Harkness  was  talkin'  to  him 
once  when  I  was  there.  'But,  Doc,'  says  he,  'this 
yere  editor  don't  eat  nothin'  else,  and  he  works  fifteen 
hours  a  day,  and  keeps  healthy  on  it/  'Sure,'  says 
Doc.  'And  ain't  they  the  healthiest  sort  of  foods?' 

'  Sure,'  says  Doc  again.     '  Then  why '  '  Do  you 

like  'em  ? '  the  Doc  interrupted  him.  '  Not  very  well/ 
said  this  fellow  at  Toll  House.  '  Well,  then  they 
ain't  healthy  for  you.  That's  why  there's  forty- 
eleven  sorts  of  grub — so  you  can  get  what  you  like. ' ' 

He  threw  back  his  head  and  laughed. 

"So  when  I  figured  all  that  out,"  he  continued, 
"  I  see  that  a  fellow  was  supposed  to  stick  to  what  he 
likes.  I  like  mountains  and  woods.  And  when  I 
got  the  right  slant  on  it  all,  I  began  to  get  onto  the 
true  innards  of  the  situation.  Everything's  im 
portant.  I  don't  believe  one  thing's  any  more 
important  than  another,  if  a  mans  doing  what  be 
likes.  Some  folks  like  Panama  Canals,  and  some 
like  meadows.  Neither  of  'em  is  goin'  to  boost 
the  race  much  in  the  long  run,  because  give  'em  time 
enough,  and  they'll  all  be  gone  —  like  the  old  im 
provements  on  this  meadow  or  those  two  fu-tile 
old  cities  you  mentioned." 

6s 


THE  CABIN 

"What  does  count  then?"  I  asked,  a  little  be 
wildered. 

"The  man,"  returned  California  John  sharply. 
"  I  don't  know  how,  but  that's  it.  If  he's  the  right 
sort,  why  he  helps  the  next  fellow  to  be  the  right 
sort,  whether  he  tries  to  or  not,  and  whether  he 
knows  it  or  not.  After  a  few  thousand  year  of  that 
sort  of  thing  we  get  somewhere  —  and  it  don't  much 
matter  whether  we  get  there  through  a  Panama 
Canal  or  go  by  hand." 

"If  everybody  felt  that  way,  we  would  have  little 
material  progress,"  I  offered  rather  feebly. 

"Everybody  don't  like  hogs,"  returned  California 
John. 

He  rose  stiffly  to  his  feet  and  fumbled  in  his  saddle 
pockets. 

"That  reminds  me,"  said  he.  "Here's  those 
magazines  you  lent  me." 

We  fell  into  a  discussion  of  their  contents.  Among 
them  were  the  results  of  an  investigation  into  the 
phenomena  of  spiritualistic  seances.  The  undoubted 
authenticity  of  certain  manifestations  combined  with 
their  futile  character  engaged  our  attention. 

"Nobody  knows  nothing  about  it,  and  that's  just 
where  it  always  ends.  And  you  can  go  potterin' 
off  into  speculatings  about  it  all  till  they  land  you 
in  the  padded  cell,"  said  California  John.  "And 

66 


ON  THE  CONDUCT  OF  LIFE 

you  notice  these  fellows  always  do  land  in  the  padded 
cell.  The  whole  business  looks  to  me  plumb  foolish. 
Of  course,  there's  something  there,  but  what's  the 
sense  strainin'  your  poor  intellects  trying  to  find  out 
about  it  when  there's  so  much  else  to  think  about. 
Probably  in  a  future  state  all  that  will  be  as  simple 
and  easy  as  takin'  a  drink.  A  fellow'd  feel  mighty 
sick  after  spendin'  his  whole  life  here  tryin'  his 
little  darndest  to  come  at  a  whole  lot  of  obscure 
problems  to  find  it  as  plain  as  A  B  C  over  there. 
If  he'd  only  had  sense  to  wait,  he'd  have  saved  him 
self  a  lot  of  trouble  and  had  time  for  what  he  was 
meant  to  pay  attention  to.  And  it  would  jar  him 
especial  bad  if  he  found  that  pine  trees  and  trolley 
cars  and  cement  walks  and  doodle  bugs  and  tomato 
cans  were  plumb  mysterious  and  soul  strainin'  over 
there:  then  he'd  be  sorry  he  hadn't  sized  them  up 
while  he  had  a  good  chance,  'stead  of  wastin'  his 


time." 


"What  makes  you  believe  in  a  future  life?"  I 
asked  him  curiously. 

"Common  sense,"  replied  the  Ranger.  "Just 
ordinary  common  sense.  Don't  need  any  miracu 
lous  revelations.  Everything  fits  in  too  well.  Hot 
weather  makes  you  sweat,  and  sweat  evaporatin' 
cools  you  off.  There  you  have  it.  Every  darn 
thing  /  ever  discovered  fits  into  everything  else 

67 


THE  CABIN 

better  than  I  could  have  planned  it  if  you  gave  me 
all  the  time  there  is  and  a  whole  library  full  of 
books.  And  you  can  see  the  reason  for  it,  if  you're 
sabe  enough.  But  how  about  us  ?  You  were  askin' 
a  while  ago.  What's  the  use  of  anything  we  build 
with  our  hands,  except  as  how  it  makes  us  more  of 
men;  and  what  in  thunder's  the  use  of  our  gettin' 
to  be  more  of  men  anyhow  ?  Everythin'  to  do  with 
us  is  plumb  incomplete.  It's  just  common  sense 
to  judge  as  how  the  game  isn't  finished  with  this 
here.  Just  common  sense." 

"What  becomes  of  us?"  I  inquired. 

"He  uses  us  accordin'  to  what  we  have  turned 
out  to  be.  This  here  is  a  sort  of  nursery  garden, 
as  I  look  at  it,  like  the  one  the  Government  has 
put  in  down  to  San  Gabriel.  By  and  by  we'll  be 
transplanted,  same  as  those  little  seedlings." 

"How  about  the  fellows  that  don't  make  anything 
of  themselves  ?" 

California  John  pointed  to  the  pile  of  debris  by 
my  cedar  log  —  the  broken,  twisted,  split  and 
spoiled  rails. 

"Just  culls,"  said  he.  "I  reckon  you'll  find  some 
other  use  for  them  there  rails  —  firewood,  stakes,, 
and  the  like." 

"There's  a  lot  of  them  in  this  world,"  said  I 
sceptically. 

68 


ON  THE  CONDUCT  OF  LIFE 

California  John  rose  slowly.  Star  stooped  his 
glossy  head  for  the  bridle. 

"His  patience  is  infinite,"  said  the  old  man  sol 
emnly.  He  reflected  for  a  moment.  Then  his  eyes 
turned  on  me  with  the  twinkling  flicker  of  fun  in 
their  depths.  "Son,"  said  he,  "I've  often  noted 
two  things  about  trees:  the  stunted  little  twisted  fel 
lows  have  had  a  heap  hard  time,  what  with  wind 
and  snow  and  poor  soil;  —  and  they  grow  farthest 
up  on  the  big  peaks." 

He  swung  aboard  his  horse  and  gathered  up  his 
reins. 

"  Got  to  go  see  whether  old  Cook's  cattle  are  tres- 
passin'  again,"  said  he.  "That  old  fool  will  keep 
on  till  some  day  I'll  call  him  everythin'  but  a  gentle 


man." 


THE  STREAM 


VIII 

•THE  STREAM 

WE  HAVE  several  good  springs  about  the 
meadow,  and  at  the  foot  of  it  they  con 
verge  to  form  a  tiny  brooklet  that  sings  and  mur 
murs  and  gurgles  through  the  alders.  But  a  few 
hundred  yards  farther  is  a  real  stream  —  the  water 
course  that  marks  the  foot  of  the  gentle  declivity 
on  which  we  live.  The  other  bank  of  it  rises  very 
steep  and  high.  It  is  grown  with  forest,  and  the 
lofty  screen  of  it  catches  the  breeze  in  all  its  fronds 
at  once,  so  that  the  organ  note  is  very  solemn  and 
austere.  But  the  Stream  itself  is  a  robust  and  vig 
orous  and  cheerful  person,  always  busy  with  affairs 
of  its  own. 

For  one  thing,  it  is  a  mountain  brook,  and  there 
fore  occupied  with  finding  its  way  down  hill.  It 
hurries  around  corners,  and  dashes  down  shallows, 
and  tumbles  over  cascades,  and  swirls  in  eddies, 
and  trickles  down  riffles  with  the  rattling  undertone 
of  the  rolling  of  little  stones.  Occasionally,  how 
ever,  it  enters  a  still  reach  beneath  overhanging 

73 


THE  CABIN 

bushes,  where  it  flows  smooth  as  a  mirror,  and  in  it 
one  can  see  the  sky.  There  the  familiar  little  birds 
turn  upside  down  and  sideways  searching  for  in 
sects  under  the  leaves,  the  waterbugs  skate  spas 
modically  here  and  there,  and  frogs  kick  about  or 
sit  in  rows  on  the  banks. 

So  far  our  Stream  is  very  like  another.  But  we 
have  several  features  to  distinguish  us.  Chief  of 
these  is  a  very  large  leaf.  It  grows  singly  at  the 
end  of  a  stalk  two  or  three  feet  long,  and  is  as  wide 
as  a  small  parasol.  This  must  be  literally  under 
stood.  In  fact  Billy  occasionally  plucks  one  for 
use  as  a  sunshade.  It  grows  where  it  should,  for 
the  best  effect  —  that  is,  in  all  sorts,  of  niches,  nooks, 
corners,  and  ledges,  where  one  would  be  most  apt 
to  plant  them  were  he  going  in  for  rockwork  garden 
ing  effects.  Once  in  a  while  you  will  find  them 
growing  in  regular  ranks  out  from  the  shoals  of  the 
riffles  in  such  a  manner  as  to  conceal  the  entire 
stream  bed  beneath.  The  effect  is  exceeding  curious 
and  tropical  —  the  straight  stems  spaced,  like  a 
miniature  forest,  and  the  broad  flat  leaves  above. 
They  fill  the  creek-bed  with  green,  and  only  oc 
casionally  can  the  observer  catch  the  flash  and 
movement  of  the  bright  water  beneath.  In  the 
autumn  they  turn  vivid  with  colour,  and  then  serve 
more  than  ever  as  accents  to  the  whole  picture. 

74 


THE  STREAM 

Early  in  our  stay  we  sought  out  the  best  and 
nearest  place  for  a  bath.  In  these  streams,  the 
usual  way  is  to  deepen  the  closest  approach  to  a 
natural  pool  by  means  of  a  dam.  We  found  what 
we  wanted,  and  were  about  ready  to  begin  work  on 
it,  when  fortunately  Billy  was  seized  with  the  spirit 
of  rambling.  She  returned  full  of  the  enthusiasm 
of  discovery. 

We  accompanied  her.  Down  among  the  pines, 
across  a  fern  flat,  through  a  screen  of  young  fir  she 
led  us.  There  below  us  the  Stream  rushed  down  a 
long,  smooth,  slanting  rock  and  into  a  real  pool. 
It  was  about  thirty  feet  long,  twenty  wide,  and 
looked  to  be  six  feet  or  so  deep.  The  opposite  side 
was  a  clear  unbroken  sheet  of  rock  that  plunged 
steeply.  The  bottom  was  of  sand. 

"That  isn't  the  best  of  it,"  said  Billy.  "Come 
down  closer." 

We  did  so.  A  ledge  of  rock  dropped  straight 
off  into  deep  water. 

"You  can  jump  in  from  that,"  said  Billy. 

Alongside  of  it,  and  a  foot  lower,  another  ledge 
sloped  gently. 

"Then  you  can  walk  out  on  that  one,"  pointed 
Billy,  "and  rub  down.  Then  you  can  dress  on  this 
dry  one  in  the  sun.  And  it's  a  regular  dressing- 
room;  see  how  thick  the  bushes  are  all  around!" 

75 


THE  CABIN 

The  swimming-pool  was  thereupon  established. 
Tuxana  looked  doubtfully  at  the  water  and  shivered. 
She  is  a  ridiculous  dog.  If  you  throw  a  stick 
into  the  water,  she  will  plunge  eagerly  after 
it,  no  matter  how  cold  the  water  may  be.  And 
she  will  keep  it  up  all  day.  But  if  you  pick  her 
up  and  cast  her  in  for  the  merely  utilitarian 
purpose  of  a  bath,  she  scrambles  out  hastily,  and 
shivers  in  the  most  piteous  manner.  Our  usual 
procedure  was  to  have  our  own  bath,  and  then  to 
throw  in  the  dogs.  Tuxana  knew  this,  and  always 
lurked  miserably  in  the  bushes  until  commanded 
so  sternly  to  come  forth  that  she  did  not  dare  dis 
obey.  Then  she  squatted  down,  became  absolutely 
limp,  and  weighed  a  ton.  With  a  splash  she  dis 
appeared.  As  soon  as  she  came  to  the  surface, 
she  struck  out  vigorously  for  the  opposite  shore, 
scrambled  out  with  great  difficulty  and  much  scratch 
ing  on  the  steep  rock,  and  took  her  position  in  the 
sun.  There  she  sat,  both  hind  feet  off  the  ground, 
indulging  in  exaggerated  shivers,  eying  us  dis 
gustedly.  When  we  were  ready  to  go  home,  she 
would  cross  back  over  a  cedar  log  that  had  fallen  to 
make  a  convenient  bridge. 

Tuxana  is  a  very  wise  individual.  I  have  read 
some  enormous  volumes  to  prove  that  animals  do 
not  think.  This  seemed  to  me  in  each  case  a  des- 

76 


THE  STREAM 

perate  effort  on  the  part  of  the  author  to  bolster  up 
his  pride  in  being  a  man.  It  seems  to  be  a  matter 
of  definition.  I  could  quite  legitimately  prove  by 
the  same  arguments  that  most  people  do  not  think. 
However  it  may  be,  something  goes  on  behind  old 
Tuxana's  wrinkled  forehead  that  results  in  some 
highly  ingenious  —  and  amusing  —  activities. 

For  example,  and  by  way  of  dissertation,  the 
nights  in  these  mountains  are  pretty  chilly,  so  that 
the  back  of  the  kennel  is  naturally  the  best  protected 
and  coziest.  When  I  would  put  the  dogs  out  of  an 
evening,  they  would  scramble  hastily  to  win  the 
coveted  position.  Tuxana,  being  slowest,  usually 
got  left,  and  had  to  content  herself  with  an  outside 
and  chilly  bed. 

Now,  the  other  dogs  are  young  and  excitable. 
Tuxana  evidently  considered  all  the  quantities  of 
the  problem  and  evolved  the  following  stratagem 
which  she  invariably  thereafter  employed  with 
uniform  success: 

When  I  would  knock  the  ashes  from  my  pipe, 
Tuxana,  recognizing  the  symptoms,  would  advance 
to  the  closed  door,  growling  fiercely.  The  moment 
the  door  was  opened,  with  a  fierce  bark,  she  rushed 
in  the  direction  of  the  bushes.  In  the  direction, 
I  say;  for  immediately  the  other  dogs,  their  hair 
bristling,  their  eyes  alight  with  excitement  and  eager- 

77 


THE  CABIN 

ness,  had  darted  like  whirlwinds  into  the  darkness 
to  get  the  game,  old  Tuxana  dropped  her  bristles, 
wagged  her  tail,  and  departed  for  the  kennel.  There 
with  many  grunts  of  satisfaction  she  selected  her 
corner.  Five  minutes  later  the  other  dogs,  having 
scoured  the  woods,  wasted  many  observations,  and 
lashed  themselves  to  a  frenzy  of  excitement  over 
nothing,  returned  to  find  her  all  settled  for  the 
night. 

At  first  I  could  hardly  believe  the  ruse  intentional, 
but,  after  its  third  or  fourth  repetition,  no  other 
conclusion  seemed  tenable. 

But  to  get  back  to  our  bath.  After  Tuxana  had 
suffered  several  cold  baths,  she  resorted  to  strata 
gem.  At  first  she  ran  gaily  over  the  cedar  log  to 
the  other  bank,  as  though  she  were  sure  the  only 
reason  we  threw  her  in  was  so  she  would  get  to  the 
opposite  side.  There  she  sat  down,  and  wiggled 
the  tip  of  her  tail,  and  laid  back  her  ears,  and  twin 
kled  her  eyes,  and  lolled  her  tongue,  and  generally 
looked  as  pleased  and  as  ingratiating  as  she  could. 
This  did  not  work.  After  several  days  she  tried 
shaking  herself  vigorously  all  over,  just  as  a  dog 
does  when  he  has  emerged  from  the  water.  I 
imagine  she  attempted  thus  to  convince  us  she  had 
already  taken  her  bath.  No  go.  Her  final  effort 
was  the  most  amusing  of  all.  She  walked  from 

78 


THE  STREAM 

the  bushes  in  her  most  dignified  manner,  marched 
to  the  Stream  and  began  to  drink.  She  drank  and 
drank  until  we  thought  she  would  burst.  Then  she 
glanced  at  us  sideways  and  drank  some  more.  We 
were  puzzled.  All  at  once  Billy  shouted  aloud 
with  laughter. 

"Don't  you  see?"  she  cried.  "The  old  thing  is 
pretending  she  thinks  you  are  offering  her  a  drink 
when  you  make  her  come  down  here." 

When  Tuxana  could  hold  no  more,  we  threw 
her  in  anyway.  Since  then  she  has  given  up  the 
struggle  and  accepts  cold  baths  as  one  of  the  in 
evitable  evils  of  life. 

Yet  in  her  shiveriest  moments  all  one  has  to  do  is 
to  pick  up  a  stick.  Immediately  Tuxana's  ears  are 
up,  her  eye  alight.  In  she  plunges,  leaping  far  out, 
landing  with  a  mighty  splash. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  one  cannot  blame  Tuxana 
in  the  least.  That  water  is  very  cold.  It  is  born  of 
the  snows,  and  it  flows  through  shaded  ways,  and 
swiftly.  One  hesitates  considerably,  plunges  with 
a  gasp,  flounders  wildly  for  the  ledge,  and  emerges 
as  rapidly  as  a  fairly  slippery  rock  will  let  him.  The 
calling  it  a  swimming-pool  is  somewhat  of  a  mis 
nomer.  No  one  ever  really  swims,  except  the  few 
strokes  necessary  to  reach  shore,  and  no  one  was 
ever  known  to  go  in  twice  to  a  bath.  But  the  glow 

79 


THE  CABIN 

of  reaction  is  fine,  and  a  rubdown  makes  you  glad 
you  came. 

A  quarter-mile  upstream,  and  just  at  the  limit  of 
our  domain,  are  the  Falls.  There  the  ridge  breaks 
down  abruptly  for  a  hundred  feet  or  so,  and  the 
Stream  must  perforce  follow.  At  first  it  used  to  be 
a  great  trick  to  get  to  the  Falls  without  losing  time 
and  rending  your  garments.  There  is  much  snow- 
brush  and  chinquapin,  and  a  tangle  of  little  hills 
and  hollows.  Now,  however,  we  have  a  trail,  of 
sorts. 

The  Falls  themselves  are  quite  marvellous,  and 
for  several  reasons.  At  the  foot  of  a  cascade  is  a 
wide  and  deep  pool  over  which  you  cross  by  a  log 
four  feet  through.  Once  on  the  other  side  you 
come  to  a  broad  slanting  sheet  of  rock  over  which 
the  Stream  flows  like  a  thin  film.  Scrambling  up 
this  you  are  face  to  face  with  the  Falls  proper.  The 
Stream  drops  over  a  ledge  in  two  branches.  Half 
way  down,  the  ledge  angles  to  form  a  deep  recess 
or  cave  —  eight  or  nine  feet  high,  four  or  five  deep, 
and  across  the  creek-bed  in  width.  Before  this 
recess  the  water  falls  in  a  glittering  veil.  The  cave 
itself  is  cushioned  with  thick  green  elastic  moss, 
like  upholstery.  In  it,  as  in  a  garden,  grow  tall 
ferns  in  groups,  and  more  of  the  big-leaved  plants. 
From  crevices  in  the  walls  are  suspended  other 

80 


THE  STREAM 

smaller  ferns.  A  more  beautiful  green  cool  bower 
of  dampness  for  a  water  nymph  could  not  be  imag 
ined.  As  frame  to  the  picture  are  jutting  rocks 
around  which  the  water  divides  or  against  which  it 
splashes;  fringes  of  ferns  and  saxifrage;  and, 
square  in  the  middle,  just  as  a  skilful  scene  painter 
would  place  them  for  the  best  theatrical  effect, 
grow  a  clump  of  big  leaves.  And  as  a  general  sur 
rounding,  the  forest. 

The  place  is  remarkable  at  any  time,  but  in  the 
late  autumn,  when  the  leaves  and  ferns  have  turned 
golden  and  orange,  it  is  almost  unbelievable.  We 
once  had  a  friend  visit  us  who  was  a  most  excellent 
artist  and  a  marvellous  manipulator  of  the  English 
language. 

"  Now  look  here,"  said  he,  "  this  is  all  very  well. 
But  you've  spoiled  my  last  atom  of  respect  for  the 
fellows  who  made  the  chromos.  I  used  to  think 
that  at  least  they  had  originality  —  they  must  invent 
their  subjects  —  that  nothing  like  the  things  they 
depicted  could  possibly  exist  in  conjunction.  The 
other  day  you  showed  me  the  babbling  brook  flow 
ing  through  the  green  meadow  with  cows  grazing  and 
trees  on  either  side  and  the  preposterously  contrast 
ing  snow  mountain  accurately  in  the  vista.  Now 
this!  If  some  grand  opera  star  will  kindly  trip 
down  these  obviously  property  rocks  and  warble 

Si 


THE  CABIN 

us  a  few  strains,  it'll  be  complete.  By  Jove!  did 
you  ever  see  anything  like  it?" 

A  swift  dash  carries  you  through  the  falling  veil 
and  into  the  recess.  To  your  surprise  you  will  find 
yourself  quite  dry;  the  great  slab  of  rock  lets  through 
not  the  smallest  trickle  of  moisture.  The  deep  green 
cushion  of  moss  is  as  wet  as  a  sponge,  but  only 
through  absorption  from  below.  It  is  a  queer  sen 
sation  to  look  out  upon  the  world  from  this  fairy 
bower.  The  falling  water  wavers  and  sparkles, 
the  blurred  landscape  flashes  and  dims,  a  super- 
brilliance  of  refraction  fills  the  cave,  the  rushing 
sound  of  waters  isolates  you  completely  from  the 
customary  impressions  of  the  forest,  as  nothing  else 
could.  When  you  step  outside  again  it  is  as  though 
you  are  suddenly  awakened.  The  trickle  of  the 
Stream,  the  songs  of  birds,  the  buzz  of  insects,  the 
wind  in  the  trees,  your  companions'  voices  burst 
on  you  as  when  a  door  is  opened.  Some  day  some 
one  will  find  the  nymph  of  the  Stream  at  home,  and 
so  will  fall  under  an  enchantment  to  dwell  always 
in  that  bright  world  apart. 

The  artist  and  I  used  to  take  long  rambles  over 
the  mountains.  We  were  continually  discovering 
all  sorts  of  interesting  things:  little  lost  meadows 
like  green  gems  in  cups  of  the  hills;  beautiful  open 
parks  of  trees  smoothly  carpeted  with  pine  needles, 

82 


THE  STREAM 

and  strewn  negligently  with  the  great  cones;  hill 
sides  of  warm  flowering  bush;  broad  sheets  of  smooth 
rock  many  acres  in  extent;  outcropping  dikes  like 
fortresses;  ridges  where  the  deer  fed  in  droves. 
Among  other  things  far  back  toward  the  backbone 
of  the  range  we  came  upon  the  headwaters  of  the 
Stream. 

It  was  in  the  fall  of  the  year,  and  the  deciduous 
leaves  were  gorgeous.  At  that  time  these  lesser 
people  of  the  forest  get  their  true  value.  During 
the  other  seasons  they  blend  so  with  the  greens 
of  their  mightier  neighbours  that  they  are  lost.  But 
now  the  very  evergreen  character  of  the  forest  throws 
them  into  bolder  relief.  Here  and  there  the  dog 
woods  glow,  visible  down  the  aisles  and  through 
the  glimpses  for  a  long  distance,  their  reds  and  soft 
pinks  and  rose-colours  delicate  as  the  petals  of  a 
flower.  Around  the  clearings  the  azaleas  form  a 
border  of  the  most  brilliant  flaming  oranges  and 
yellows;  and  the  aspens  are  as  golden  as  sunshine, 
and  the  oaks  ruddy  as  a  fire.  While  green,  these 
trees  have  seemed  a  sort  of  shrubbery  to  the  forest 
proper.  Now  they  show  in  their  true  proportions, 
as  trees  of  the  sort  we  see  at  home  and  are  accus 
tomed  to.  And  now  at  last,  this  being  fully  appre 
ciated,  the  pines  tower  as  the  giants  they  are.  It 
is  an  impressive  season.  The  woods  thus  seem  to 


THE  CABIN 

have  grown  taller;  the  bird-songs  have  stilled;  not 
a  breath  of  wind  stirs  the  pine-tops;  the  tricklings 
of  little  rills  have  hushed.  A  rather  reproving 
portent  is  in  the  air.  Those  creatures  that  stir 
abroad,  do  so  furtively,  silently.  A  flash  of  wings, 
a  glimpse  of  brown  —  and  again  the  immemorial 
hush  of  the  year  falls  across  the  forest  like  the  haze 
of  a  great  smoke. 

We  came,  on  this  day,  to  a  point  on  the  slope  of 
a  hill  whence  we  could  see  through  the  straight 
tree-trunks  to  a  glade.  Glade  is  the  word,  used 
this  time  in  one  of  its  few  veritable  applications.  A 
lawn  of  green  flung  in  a  hollow,  and  halfway  up  a 
slope;  a  dozen  big  gray  boulders  around  whose  bases 
grew  gorgeous  bushes;  half  as  many  clumps  of  the 
same  gorgeous  bushes  scattered  here  and  there;  a 
fringe  of  orange-leaved  azaleas;  and  the  great  solemn 
trees  standing  in  stately  ranks  as  though  guarding. 
And  down  through  the  forest  ran  a  straight  vista 
between  the  trees,  uniform  in  width,  carpeted  with 
green,  in  which  flowed  a  little  brook.  The  sun 
was  low  and  ahead  of  us.  The  shadows  lay 
long  across  the  meadow,  and  the  forest  was  a  mysteri 
ous  alternation  of  smoky-looking  shade,  impene 
trable  darkness,  and  the  brilliance  of  sky  through 
tiny  openings.  From  the  forest  seemed  to  flow 
that  lucent  mist  one  always  observes  when  looking 

84 


THE  STREAM 

across  barriers  to  a  westering  sun.  The  artist  gazed 
for  some  time  in  silence.  He  was  deeply  impressed. 

"Gee!"  said  he  at  last.  "If  the  fairies  don't  pull 
off  a  fandango  every  moonlight  night,  they  don't 
know  a  good  dance-hall  when  they  see  it!" 

We  broke  through  the  bushes  to  the  meadow. 
There  out  in  the  grasses  was  a  round  sunken  pool, 
ten  feet  across,  pellucid,  utterly  calm.  From  its 
lower  edge  stole  a  timid  trickle  of  water.  It  crept 
through  the  grasses  down  the  meadow,  disappeared 
under  an  old  burned  tree-trunk,  trickled  in  musical 
drops  over  another,  gathered  courage  as  it  grew, 
finally  gurgled  away  down  the  long  avenue  guarded 
for  it  by  the  stately  trees.  The  Stream  was  born. 


THEOPHILUS 


IX 

THEOPHILUS 

THEOPHILUS  is  a  bird.  He  perches  on  a 
stub  at  our  gateway,  watching  cynically, 
his  head  cocked  slightly  to  one  side,  all  who  pass 
into  our  enclosure.  He  has  the  air  of  a  robin  look 
ing  down  at  a  worm;  of  a  bald-headed,  very  wise 
old  sinner  who  has  nothing  more  to  learn;  of  a  vigi 
lant  and  faithful  guardian  of  his  master's  interests; 
of  utter  detachment  and  indifference  —  whichever 
you  please.  Presumably  no  one  worth  his  dis 
pleasure  has  yet  passed  our  gate,  for  he  has  never 
stooped  over  to  rap  anybody  with  his  great  yellow 
bill.  However,  he  is  all  ready  to  do  so.  Personally 
I  treat  Theophilus  with  great  respect,  for  I  have 
to  pass  in  and  out  of  that  gate  several  times  a  day. 

Theophilus  has  a  tremendous  yellow  bill,  some 
what  on  the  toucan  order,  only  one-storied,  and  of 
a  slight  Hebraic  cast.  It  is  about  three  feet  long, 
and  has  a  grim  curve  at  the  corners  of  the  mouth. 
His  head  is  not  quite  so  long  as  his  bill,  and  is  a 
beautiful  sky  blue.  Was  a  beautiful  sky  blue,  I 

«9 


THE  CABIN 

should  say,  for  age  has  dimmed  the  colours  of  his 
youth.  A  fiery  upstanding  crest  of  red  completes 
his  upper  works. 

I  regret  to  state  that  Theophilus  either  is  hump 
backed  or  is  sunk  in  a  continual  grouch.  When 
one  possesses  blue,  red,  yellow,  and  green  wings 
with  black  polka  dots,  one  should  be  entirely  happy. 
Theophilus  is  up  here  alone  all  winter,  though,  and 
he  may  be  merely  humping  his  back  philosophically 
against  the  snow  and  the  cold.  Certainly  he  keeps 
his  tail  spread  bravely.  It  is  a  blue  tail,  with  a 
broad  yellow  edge  to  each  feather.  Blue  and  red 
legs,  a  red  breast  and  yellow  belly,  and  yellow  claws 
complete  Theophilus's  chaste  and  tasteful  colour 
scheme.  His  eye,  I  regret  to  state,  is  small  and 
malicious.  His  attitude,  as  I  have  intimated,  is 
one  of  perpetual  challenge;  and  his  motto  he  carries, 
neatly  lettered,  to  test  each  chance  comer.  It 
reads : 

DO  YOU  SPEAK  THE  LANGUAGE 
OF  OUR  TRIBE  ? 

Mr.  Dan  Beard  is  primarily  responsible  for  Theo 
philus.  Some  years  ago  he  published  in  Outing 
Magazine  full  directions  and  measurements  on 
"How  to  Make  a  Totem  Bird."  Theophilus  is  a 
modification  —  at  long  range  —  of  these  ideas,  Sub- 

90 


THEOPHILUS 

sequently  I  saw  Mr.  Beard  and  made  various  in 
quiries.  He  was  much  interested  in  Theophilus, 
but  vague  in  his  answers  as  to  how  one  was  supposed 
to  solve  specified  mechanical  difficulties  of  con 
struction.  A  certain  surprise  characterized  his 
attitude.  You  all  remember  that  stage  situation 
wherein  the  alleged  wizard  is  commanded  under 
pain  of  death  to  prove  his  powers  by  making  the 
Nile  rise.  Desperately  —  but  hopelessly  —  he  goes 
through  as  elaborate  mummeries  as  he  can  invent. 
In  the  midst  of  his  performances,  in  rushes  a  mes 
senger.  "Sire!  The  Nile  is  rising!"  he  shouts. 
"Is  it?"  cries  the  wizard  in  stupefied  astonishment. 
Well,  somehow,  Mr.  Beard's  expression  when  I  told 
him  I  had  built  a  totem  bird  on  the  inspiration  — 
not  the  specifications  —  of  his  article,  reminded  me 
of  that  wizard. 

"Look  here,  Beard,"  said  I  finally.  "Did  you 
ever  build  that  totem  bird  ?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  he;  then  after  a  pause,  and  with  a 
quizzical  grin  —  "with  a  pocket  knife.  I  worked 
out  the  details,  and  then  just  enlarged  them." 

"Right,"  said  I.  "I  thought  you  never  tackled 
it  with  an  axe  and  a  cross-cut  saw." 

Theophilus  was  made  on  smaller  measurements 
than  the  original;  but  even  then  his  component  parts 
weighed  each  more  than  I  could  lift. 

9* 


THE  CABIN 

»  . 

In  cutting  the  head  and  body  I  had  help  from  the 
three  boys  of  our  neighbours,  ten  miles  away. 
After  that  Billy  and  I  struggled  with  him  as  best 
we  could.  His  body  and  legs  went  up  first.  I 
managed  to  rig  a  tripod,  or  "scissors,"  of  three 
poles  over  the  stub,  arranged  a  slide  of  old  boards, 
and  thus,  an  inch  or  so  at  a  time,  got  the  dismem 
bered  carcass  to  the  top  without  dropping  it  off  on 
the  ground.  This  was  no  slight  task,  and  several 
times  I  literally  wrestled  with  that  fowl.  Once 
atop,  we  had  further  to  stand  him  upright,  and 
fasten  his  feet.  The  wings  we  built  from  shakes  and 
some  scraps  of  four-inch  boards;  and  nailed  on. 
The  tail  was  of  shakes  arranged  fan-wise.  Shakes 
shingle-fashion  imitated  the  feathers  of  the  back. 

But  with  the  head  we  had  the  most  difficulty.  It 
weighed  a  good  deal  more  than  we  could  handle 
comfortably,  and  it  had  to  be  lifted  bodily  into  place 
from  a  narrow  and  insecure  footing.  This  I  man 
aged  to  accomplish,  then  called  on  Billy  to  steady 
it  while  I  spiked  it  fast. 

Up  to  now  we  had  controlled  the  creation  of  Theo- 
philus,  arranging  the  details  of  his  anatomy  to  suit 
ourselves.  But  at  this  moment  there  intervened 
Theophilus's  own  familiar  spirit,  his  oversoul  in  the 
universe  of  grotesques,  to  determine  his  final  charac 
ter.  Billy  held  on  as  tight  as  she  could;  and  I  spiked 

92 


THEOPHILUS 

as  carefully  as  I  was  able.  Yet  when  we  stepped 
back  to  contemplate  the  result,  lo!  it  was  on  crooked. 
Lamentations  could  have  no  practical  results,  for  it 
was  too  late.  But  when  Theophilus's  beautiful 
colours  were  applied,  we  found  that  his  familiar 
spirit  had  wrought  better  than  we  knew.  As  the 
paint  defined  his  crest  and  bill  and  eyes,  he  took  on 
that  half-comical  mysterious  attitude  of  listening 
and  looking  for  something  coming  along  the  trail, 
which  has  from  that  moment  set  Theophilus  miles 
above  us  in  experience  and  wisdom,  and  has  sum 
marily  taken  him  from  our  fashioning  hands  as  a 
thing,  and  made  him  an  individual  entity.  I  no 
more  feel  responsible  for  —  or  capable  of  —  Theo 
philus,  than  I  do  for  the  pines  or  the  weird  granites 
of  Shuteye.  I  confess  he  slipped  beyond  me.  The 
method  of  sawing  him,  of  nailing  him,  of  pegging 
him  down  I  comprehend;  but  his  soul  and  what  he 
means  and  his  general  attitude  toward  me  and  toward 
life  in  general  I  do  not  understand.  He  is  hardly 
friendly,  as  is  a  dog;  nor  yet  inimical  in  any  way  — 
perhaps  merely  aloof,  and  very  superior. 

As  you  come  down  the  road  through  the  forest, 
and  rise  gradually  to  the  crest  of  the  gentle  slope 
that  gives  over  to  our  Meadow,  Theophilus  is  the 
first  object  to  rise  above  the  hill-line.  In  the  dis 
tance  and  against  the  sombre  magnitude  of  the 

93 


THE  CABIN 

forest,  his  gay  plumage  makes  a  very  pleasing  spot 
of  colour.  In  spite  of  the  gaudiness  of  his  attire 
and  the  preposterous  proportions  of  him,  he  never 
seems  out  of  place.  Anywhere  else  he  would  be 
utterly  and  absurdly  grotesque;  but  here,  at  once 
subdued  and  thrown  into  relief  by  his  surroundings, 
he  is  like  the  gargoyles  on  the  great  cathedrals, 
appropriate  and  pleasing.  But  I  would  feel  a  lot 
easier,  if  I  only  knew  whether  he  really  approves 
of  us  or  not. 


< 


ON  BIRDS  AND  LIVING  THINGS 


ON  BIRDS  AND  LIVING  THINGS 

I    AM  very   glad   I  was   once    somewhat   of  an 
ornithologist:    I   am   equally  glad    that   I    am 
not  one  now. 

The  ornithologist's  interest  in  birds  is  in  direct 
ratio  to  their  rarity.  I  well  remember  the  first  flock 
of  Evening  Grosbeaks  I  ever  saw.  It  was  in  the 
dead  of  winter  and  in  the  height  of  a  wind  and  snow 
storm.  The  hard  snow  cut  like  knives,  and  the 
prospect  was  one  of  half-buried  fences,  tossing  bared 
branches,  and  swirling,  blinding  flurries  sweeping 
a  beaten  country-side.  The  birds  sat  stolidly  in 
the  tops  of  two  elms  by  the  road,  resembling  a  sort 
of  gorgeous  upgrowing  fruit  or  cone  rather  than 
living  creatures.  With  a  leap  of  the  heart  I  recog 
nized  them  —  by  plates  and  descriptions.  I  shall 
never  forget  how  slowly  and  lazily  that  horse  turned 
into  a  drift  where  I  could  tie  and  blanket  him;  how 
stiff  the  buckles  were,  and  how  numb  my  fingers; 
the  difficulty  I  had  in  putting  together  the  shotgun! 
The  Grosbeaks  never  moved.  So  finally  I  shot  a 

97 


THE  CABIN 

fine  male;  and  the  whole  band  uttered  a  concerted 
cheeping,  and  flashed  to  the  top  of  another  tree 
where  they  again  perched  stolidly.  I  stuffed  a  little 
pellet  of  cotton  down  my  specimen's  throat;  plugged 
his  nostrils,  wrapped  him  carefully  in  a  paper  cone 
so  his  feathers  would  not  be  ruffled.  The  same 
performance  was  repeated.  After  I  had  attended 
to  this  prize,  I  set  myself  to  observing  their  habits. 
They  had  none.  Merely  they  perched  in  the  top 
of  that  tree,  occasionally  remarking  to  each  other 
what  a  fine  warm  winter  day  it  was,  while  I  slowly 
congealed.  After  a  while,  as  though  at  a  signal, 
they  departed  into  the  swirling  snow. 

Save  for  the  identity  of  the  birds  and  a  certain 
quality  of  weird  aloofness,  that  was  not  an  extraor 
dinarily  interesting  or  illuminating  incident,  yet 
in  my  collecting  experience  it  was  a  bright  particular 
star  of  a  day. 

The  recording  of  three  out  of  the  five  Connecticut 
Warblers  then  observed  in  Michigan  was  another 
triumph.  At  that  time  but  a  score  of  this  extremely 
rare  bird  had  been  seen  anywhere,  and  some  doubt 
existed  as  to  whether  or  not  it  should  be  considered 
a  hybrid.  I  do  not  know  its  present  status.  You 
may  imagine  the  prize  was  too  great  to  risk  in  ob 
servation.  A  lightning  recognition,  a  quick  aim, 
and  that  adventure  was  over. 

98 


ON  BIRDS  AND  LIVING  THINGS 

I  have  lain  belly  down  for  hours  straining  my 
attention  to  catch  stray  glimpses  of  some  infrequent 
migrant,  while  thousands  of  the  "common"  species 
fairly  overran  me.  Long  eager  days  have  I  followed 
the  lure  of  a  single  pair  of  flashing  wings.  Who 
cared  to  bother  with  Goldfinches,  and  Redstarts, 
with  Maryland  Yellow  Throats  and  Towhees  when 
the  woods  held  possibilities  of  such  rarities  (to  our 
region)  as  the  Prothonotary,  the  fields  a  faint  chance 
that  a  Dickcissel  had  wandered  so  far  north  ?  Spar 
row  Hawks  were  uninteresting  because  you  could 
get  near  them,  and  Cooper's  Hawks  because  you 
could  not. 

Yet  this  is  true;  that  in  order  to  recognize  at  a 
glance  the  rarities,  you  must  also  know  all  the 
common  species.  Else  how  can  you  know  that  every 
feather  is  not  a  prize  ?  And  as  the  common  species 
are  everywhere  at  all  times,  and  so  constantly  to  be 
met  with,  it  follows  that  shortly  you  will  be  able  to 
identify  them  at  a  glance.  At  one  time  —  the  skill 
has  departed  to  a  large  extent  now  —  I  could  name 
the  genus  and  often  the  species  of  a  bird  as  far  as  I 
could  distinguish  the  manner  of  his  flight;  and  the 
exact  species  of  any  one  of  three  hundred  varieties 
by  any  portion  of  his  song  or  note.  Perforce  I 
learned  how  to  look  for  birds,  where  the  different 
species  were  to  be  found  and  whither  their  habits 

99 


THE  CABIN 

of  life  led  them.  I  had  to  do  this  in  order  to  elimi 
nate  the  rank  and  file  from  my  rare  and  interesting 
objects  of  pursuit  and  identification.  I  am  very  glad 
I  have  been  something  of  an  ornithologist. 

Three  mornings  ago  a  fine  male  Evening  Gros 
beak  flitted  out  of  the  pine  forest  to  perch  on  the 
Cabin  ridge-pole.  I  thought  him  a  remarkably 
handsome  person,  but  stupid.  After  turning  him 
self  around  to  exhibit  fully  the  wondrous  symbolism 
of  his  plumage,  he  flew  away.  In  the  mean  time 
a  Junco  was  earnestly  carrying  on  an  interesting 
and  animated  conversation  with  a  Chickadee  and  a 
most  ridiculous  Pigmy  Nuthatch.  This  particular 
Junco  comes  to  see  us  every  morning  before  we  are  up. 
We  can  recognize  him,  even  before  we  open  our  eyes, 
by  the  way  he  flirts  his  wings.  He  belongs  to  an 
extremely  common  species  indeed;  but  he  is  a  most 
interesting  and  companionable  person.  I  concluded 
that  I  am  very  glad  I  am  no  longer  an  ornithologist. 
For  while  a  scientist  of  that  brand  is  interested 
most  in  the  rarities,  the  rest  of  us  care  more  for 
the  individuals.  There  are  more  individuals  than 
rarities;  therefore  we  have  a  much  better  time. 

These  forests  are  extraordinarily  populous  with 
birds.  In  the  early  morning  the  woods  ring  and 
echo  and  reecho  with  their  songs.  One  gains  the 
impression  of  a  vast  multitude  busy  with  its  daily 

100 


ON  BIRDS  AND  LIVING  THINGS 

and  accustomed  affairs.  The  joke  of  it  is,  those 
affairs  go  on  just  as  busily  when  we  are  not  here. 
It  is  a  community  we  have  nothing  to  do  with.  We 
are  foreigners.  When  one  takes  a  walk  into  the 
forest,  he  counts  for  nothing.  The  creatures  are 
aware  of  his  presence,  and  at  least  doubtful  of  his 
intentions;  therefore  they  interrupt  their  occupation, 
their  song,  their  journeys,  to  keep  a  bright  and  sus 
picious  eye  on  him.  Even  when  he  hides  long 
enough  to  restore  confidence  to  the  forest  at  large, 
there  are  one  or  two  amateur  detectives  who  decline 
to  be  fooled,  and  who  hover  distractingly  and  silently 
near  at  hand.  The  forest  modifies  itself,  ever  so 
subtly,  to  man's  domination. 

But  when  one  sleeps  out,  and  in  the  morning 
merely  uncloses  his  eyes  to  the  dawn,  the  real  busi 
ness  of  the  forest  world  goes  on  full  swing  as  though 
he  were  not  there  —  as  it  would  were  the  world  of 
men  absolutely  non-existent.  He  has  shrunk  from  an 
influence  to  a  mere  intelligence.  Over  him  woods 
life  passes  unruffled,  happy,  absorbed  in  its  affairs 
utterly  unself-conscious,  in  the  manner  of  the  wilds. 

This,  to  us,  is  one  of  the  chief  delights  of  sleeping 
out  —  when  we  do  not  have  to  get  up  early  and 
travel,  of  course  —  to  watch  the  early-morning 
occupations  of  the  forest  world. 

The  Sierra  night  here  is  one  of  the  stillest  things 

101 


THE  CABIN 

on  earth,  not  even  excepting  a  calm  at  sea.  The 
wind  falls  utterly;  there  seem  to  be  no  nocturnal 
songsters,  like  our  old  friend  the  White  Throat  of 
the  Northern  forest;  the  chill  of  the  mountain  night 
sends  all  humming  and  murmuring  insects  early 
to  bed.  There  is  literally  nothing  to  make  a  noise, 
save  the  far  murmuring  brook,  and  that  is  so  distant 
as  to  supply  only  the  faintest  wash  of  monotone  to 
the  picture  of  Night.  An  occasional  owl  or  coyote, 
the  horses  moving  in  the  meadow,  the  tinkle  of 
Flapjack's  sweet-toned  bell,  actually  break  the  silence, 
sometimes  in  an  almost  startling  manner.  The  tall 
trees  are  very  motionless  and  solemn  and  black. 
So  still  are  they  that  almost  it  seems  the  stillness  of 
some  tension,  as  though  their  heaven-pointing  tips 
conveyed  some  silent  invisible  fluid  of  virtue  straight 
up  from  the  overcharged  earth,  as  a  candle  flame 
sometimes  stands  unwavering  in  its  upward  flow  of 
abundant  heat.  To  a  city  dweller  sleeping  out  for 
the  first  time  in  these  forests,  the  night  is  sometimes 
terrifying,  not  from  apprehension  of  wild  beasts  or 
falling  limbs  or  any  other  material  danger,  but 
from  the  subtle  big  awe  and  mystery  of  something 
intangible  he  cannot  understand. 

On  no  other  forest  with  which  I  am  acquainted 
does  the  enchantment  lie  so  heavy.  It  is  as  though 
the  lifting  of  the  last  broad  sunray  across  Shuteye 

102 


ON  BIRDS  AND  LIVING  THINGS 

was  as  the  lifting  of  a  golden  wand.  Somewhere 
in  the  depths  of  the  woodland  is  the  Sleeping  Prin 
cess;  and  all  the  trees  and  bushes,  the  thickets,  the 
birds  and  the  creatures  have  been  stricken  to  im 
mobility  pending  her  awakening.  Especially  is  this 
illusion  near  to  the  truth  when  the  moon  sails  the 
heavens.  Down  through  the  still  darkness  of  forest 
aisles  you  look  to  a  little  glade  all  of  most  beautiful 
and  delicate  frostwork.  From  blackness  projects 
a  single  branch  of  silver.  Long  shadows  lie  im 
mobile  across  openings  of  light.  But  these  shadows, 
and  the  trunks  of  trees,  and  even  the  silhouettes 
seen  against  the  moon  are  not  of  the  blackness  of 
starlit  nights.  Across  them  all  is  a  milky  lucent 
veil.  This  is  a  new  forest,  a  new  world  into  which 
you  have  graciously  been  permitted  to  wander. 
The  grosser  substance  of  the  material  universe  has 
been  magicked  away,  leaving  the  wonderful  form- 
soul  of  them  to  stand  until  a  touch  shall  crumble 
them  to  a  pinch  of  white  moon-dust.  You  move 
by  sufferance,  the  only  noisy,  blundering,  restless 
creature  in  the  world.  And  the  great  silence  and 
stillness  rebuke  you. 

There  are  a  few  familiars  to  the  great  magician 
who  are  allowed  certain  privileges  of  the  night.  Of 
these  the  Owls  are  the  most  remarkable — is  not  the 
magician  always  attended  by  an  owl  or  so  ?  The 

103 


THE  CABIN 

big  Horned  Owls  with  their  booming  whoo,  whoo, 
whoo,  are  in  tune  with  the  solemnity  of  an  earth 
fallen  under  enchantment.  But  there  is  another 
species — the  Short-eared  Owl — that  represents  well 
the  diabolical  side  popularly  attributed  to  all  necro 
mancy.  He  clucks,  he  shrieks,  he  laughs,  he  shouts 
insultingly  and  sardonically.  The  woods  are  full 
of  his  ribald  jeerings.  Like  the  coyotes,  two  make 
racket  enough  for  a  dozen.  When  one  of  these  irrev 
erent  imps  breaks  loose  among  the  echoes  of  a  forest 
fallen  utterly  silent,  it  seems  that  the  farthermost 
stars  must  awaken  and  give  ear.  Yet  when  the  row 
is  all  over,  you  find  that  not  the  tiniest  bird,  not  the 
smallest  leaf  has  been  aroused  from  the  deep  trance. 
The  imps  have  beaten  in  vain  against  that  supernal 
calm.  All  they  have  succeeded  in  accomplishing  is 
to  render  frantic  Brudder  Bones,  but  as  Brudder 
Bones  is  only  a  pink-eyed,  white  bull  pup  seven 
months  old,  his  judgment  does  not  count  for  much. 
To  the  west  the  trees  of  our  forest  are  apparently 
of  almost  an  equal  height.  Yet  there  is  one,  far 
distant,  that,  either  because  it  stands  directly  op 
posite  a  chance  opening  in  the  east,  or  because  it 
really  is  taller  than  its  neighbours,  is  bathed  to  its 
waist  in  golden  sunlight  before  any  of  the  others 
have  caught  a  single  ray.  Therefore  it  is  known  as 
the  Dawn  Tree. 

104 


ON  BIRDS  AND  LIVING  THINGS 

By  the  Dawn  Tree  we  know  that  it  is  time  to  get 
up.  And  under  the  Dawn  Tree,  we  suspect,  lies 
the  Sleeping  Princess,  for  with  the  touch  of  morning 
on  its  crest  the  forest  stirs.  Birds  chirp,  a  tiny 
breeze  murmurs  through  the  highest  tops,  certain 
spiders  swing  perilously  from  silvery  cables,  the  bees 
hum  by  on  their  way  to  the  flower  gardens  of  the 
meadows.  And  far  up,  so  high  that  barely  we  can 
make  them  out,  silver-flashing  birds  flutter  across 
the  emptiness  of  blue  ether,  like  the  spirits  of  morn 
ing  out  of  the  east. 

Inch  by  inch  the  sunlight  descends,  until  the  forest 
is  bathed  in  light,  every  aisle  and  thicket  of  it,  a 
golden  green  light  seen  at  no  other  time  of  day. 
Then  indeed  the  life  of  the  woodland  is  at  high  tide. 
All  the  insects  are  out,  and  the  birds  after  them. 
Everything  with  a  voice  has  something  to  say,  and 
takes  time  to  say  it.  The  freshness  of  morning  is  in  the 
air,  and  the  exhilaration  of  a  brand-new  untried  day. 

In  the  complicated  bird-life  of  the  forest  are  many 
planes  and  stories.  Some  dwell  entirely  in  the  tip 
tops  of  the  trees,  rarely  descending  below  the  level 
of  the  uppermost  branches.  Others  inhabit  the 
mid-regions;  while  still  a  third  class  divide  their 
time  between  the  lower  limbs  and  the  brush.  Be 
sides  all  these  are  the  distinctly  ground-dwellers, 
such  as  the  Quail  and  the  Towhee  families. 

105 


THE  CABIN 

Birds  are  in  one  respect  a  remarkably  complacent 
race.  Each  species  has  its  own  way  of  doing  things, 
from  which  it  never  varies,  no  matter  how  over 
whelmingly  unanimous  the  example  set  by  other 
species  all  around  it.  And  the  examples  are  numer 
ous  enough  and  close  enough,  one  would  think,  to 
tempt  at  least  the  youngest  and  most  enterprising 
to  try  a  new  way  of  doing  things,  if  only  to  see  how 
it  seems.  But  no;  the  conduct  of  life  has  been 
settled  ages  ago,  there  remains  only  the  pleasant 
task  of  filling  the  frame  with  as  much  brightness 
and  joyous  colour  as  possible.  "No,"  says  young 
Master  Thrush,  "  singing  to  the  new  risen  sun  from 
the  very  tip  of  a  big  fir  may  be  very  pleasant,  and 
may  do  very  well  for  Robins;  but  none  of  us  would 
think  of  it  for  a  moment  i  And  Magnolia  Warblers 
are  undoubtedly  very  worthy  people;  but  none  of 
our  set  ever  wears  a  yellow  spot  on  the  rump." 
Among  human  beings  extreme  conservatism  usually 
means  also  a  gloomy  and  cheerless  outlook  on  life. 
Here  are  creatures  more  settled  in  their  ways  than 
the  Chinese  themselves,  yet  able  to  preserve  also  a 
free  and  joyous  spirit. 

On  this  account  our  Robins  amuse  us  immensely. 
They  are  of  course  accustomed  by  tradition  im 
memorial  to  close-clipped  green  lawns,  well  wa 
tered,  with  shade  trees,  conservatories,  vines,  gravel 

1 06 


ON  BIRDS  AND  LIVING  THINGS 

drives,  angleworms,  and  clipped  hedges.  In  those 
surroundings  the  self-respecting  Robin  can  do  him 
self  justice.  We  all  know  how  well  he  lives  up  to 
his  station  in  life  —  three  or  four  proud  hops  for 
ward,  breast  swelled,  head  back,  aspect  noble;  the 
ostentatious  and  theatrical  cocking  of  the  head  side- 
wise  over  a  wormy-looking  spot;  the  sudden  dab, 
the  braced  legs,  the  reluctant  worm,  the  triumphant 
pose  as  the  victim  comes  away.  It  is  as  well  done 
as  is  the  knee  action  of  the  horses  brought  to  the 
door.  Not  every  Robin  can  have  his  setting  as 
elaborate  as  he  might  wish,  but  at  least  he  has  reason 
to  expect  something  in  the  way  of  a  well-kept  sward. 
Up  here  there  are  no  lawn-mowers,  no  lawn,  no 
angleworms,  no  nothing.  We  cannot  support  a 
single  Robin  in  the  style  to  which  he  has  been  ac 
customed.  Nevertheless,  our  Robins,  in  place  of 
going  seedy  and  losing  interest,  as  so  many  people 
do  in  the  circumstances,  make  the  best  of  it.  Not 
a  ceremony  is  omitted.  What  matter  that  the  lawn  is 
only  the  meadow  grass  cropped  down  by  the  horses  ? 
it  is  emerald  green;  what  matter  if  there  are  no 
angleworms  at  all  ?  one  can  attitudinize  just  as  care 
fully  over  any  old  doodlebug.  Our  Robins  hold 
as  rigidly  to  the  good-form  of  angleworming  as  any 
foxhunter  to  the  rules  of  the  game,  even  when  the 
prosaic  aniseed  replaces  the  living  quarry.  I 

107 


THE  CABIN 

respect  the  Robins  for  that,  and  I  must  confess  that 
their  touching  efforts  to  make  our  front  yard  look 
aristocratic  sometimes  almost  succeed. 

We  have  also  a  very  busy  and  friendly  inhabitant 
of  our  bushes  next  the  house  that  we  call  the  Plain 
tive  Bird.  This  is  because  of  his  note,  which  com 
plains  gently  and  plaintively  of  something  that  has 
gone  wrong.  The  grievance  is  evidently  of  long 
standing,  for  the  tone  has  become  just  a  trifle  queru 
lous.  Perhaps  it  is  an  ancestral  outrage,  the  memory 
of  which  has  become  traditional  and  the  protest 
against  which  is  a  family  duty,  for  the  bird  himself 
is  as  lively  and  cheerful  as  you  please.  He  is  es 
pecially  partial  to  the  low-growing  chinquapins, 
and  when  he  is  occupied  in  stirring  up  the  peace  of 
that  thicket,  he  seems  to  pervade  it  from  one  end 
to  the  other.  He  scratches  among  the  leaves  in 
great,  two-handed  swoops  that  send  things  flying. 
Then  he  hops  out  to  the  edge,  cocks  one  merry  black 
eye  up  at  us,  voices  his  plaintive  we-o-wee,  and 
examines  to  see  what  he  has  unearthed.  Generally 
that  proves  to  be  nothing.  He  does  a  lot  of  vigorous 
scratching  for  meagre  results,  but  he  seems  to 
enjoy  it,  and  he  is  certainly  a  friendly  and  fearless 
person. 

With  him  are  the  Purple  Finches, hundreds  of  them. 
The  salted  clay  of  our  chimney  possesses  a  fascination 

108 


ON  BIRDS  AND  LIVING  THINGS 

for  them.  At  any  time  of  day  we  can  flush  a  dozen 
or  so  by  coming  around  the  corner  on  them  suddenly. 
They  scurry  away  with  a  great  fluttering  of  wings, 
but  if  we  stand  quite  still,  even  for  ten  seconds, 
back  the  bravest  venture,  their  crimson  head- 
feathers  ruffled,  their  eyes  upon  us,  but  their  eager 
little  bills  at  work  on  our  precious  structure.  They 
are  very  tiny  people,  and  weak,  and  the  chimney 
is  solid,  but  I  sometimes  think  they  will  in  the  course 
of  years  finish  by  carrying  off  our  fireplace  piece 
meal.  They  love,  in  the  early  morning,  to  perch  on 
the  straight  topmost  finger  of  the  giant  firs,  there 
to  enjoy  the  first  sun,  and  occasionally  to  favour  us 
with  their  sweet  and  rambling  warble. 

Hardly  second  to  these  two  in  their  claim  on  a 
semi-domesticity  are  the  Juncos,  or  snowbirds. 
They  and  their  cheerful  flirtings  in  and  out,  the 
neatness  of  their  costume  with  its  black  muffler 
and  white  waistcoat,  and  the  two  flashing  white 
feathers  of  their  tails  are  so  familiar  a  feature  of 
our  meadow  that  we  should  miss  the  azaleas  no 
more  than  them. 

These  three  —  the  Purple  Finches,  the  Plaintive 
Birds,  and  the  Juncos  —  stand  to  us  instead  of 
domestic  fowls.  They  live  always  inside  our  fence, 
they  never  wander  far  abroad,  and  they  are  always 
to  be  found.  The  other  birds  dwell  aloof,  or  cruisf 

109 


THE  CABIN 

it  here  and  there  in  the  forest,  or  drop  in  on  us 
occasionally  for  a  friendly  visit  and  gossip. 

Of  such  the  most  amusing  are  the  independent, 
swashbuckling  bands  of  Nuthatches  and  Chickadees. 
For  an  hour  or  so  after  sunrise  you  will  have  no 
indication  whatever  of  their  existence.  Then  far 
off  in  the  woods  you  become  aware  of  a  voice  like 
the  blowing  of  hundreds  of  elfin  tin  trumpets.  The 
sound  comes  nearer;  is  heard  to  be  intermingled 
with  clear  modulated  whistles  and  the  distinctive 
chick-a-dee-dee-dee  of  that  small  and  independent 
individual.  Suddenly  every  tree  is  covered  with 
comical,  scow-built,  tiny  birds,  moving  busily  - 
and  impartially  —  up,  down,  or  around  the  trunks; 
every  twig  is  quivering  with  the  weight  of  bright- 
eyed,  quick,  eager  little  Chickadees,  upside  down, 
right  side  up,  seeking  eagerly  and  minutely  every  pos 
sibility  that  might  conceal  an  addition  to  breakfast. 
The  host  sweeps  by  you  as  though  you  did  not  exist. 
The  little  fellows  are  friendly  enough  —  there  is 
nothing  scornful  or  exclusive  in  their  attitude,  as 
there  is  in  that  of  the  Stellar  Jay  for  example  —  but 
they  haven't  time  for  you.  You  have  no  trunk  to 
run  up  and  down,  no  twigs  from  which  to  balance. 
They  are  not  the  slightest  bit  afraid  of  you.  Merely 
they  close  about  you,  and  move  on.  One  moment 
the  trees  are  swarming  with  bewildering  life;  the 

no 


ON  BIRDS  AND  LIVING  THINGS 

next,  they  are  empty.  Receding  in  the  distance  you 
hear  the  chorus  of  toot-toot-toot,  chick- a-dee-dee-dee, 
dear  me,  and  the  harsh  squawking  of  the  jays  who 
seem  to  delight  in  acting  the  part  of  derisive  camp 
followers  to  this  elfin  army. 

Other  free  spirits  of  the  woods  are  the  Wood 
peckers.  They  range  as  the  mood  strikes  them, 
swooping  in  long  curved  flight,  uttering  loud  and 
triumphant  cries.  From  the  tops  of  dead  trees 
they  beat  out  a  long  roll  in  the  sheer  joy  of  noise; 
on  half-decayed  logs  they  deliver  the  purposeful, 
spaced,  heavy  blows  of  the  workman;  they  romp 
around  and  around  tree-trunks  in  an  ascending 
spiral,  chasing  each  other  in  an  ecstasy  of  play.  Like 
noisy  schoolboys,  they  break  all  the  solemnities. 
No  hush  of  evening  or  languor  of  noon  is  proof 
against  their  rattling  or  their  sonorous  weecher, 
weecher!  At  long  intervals  the  king  of  them  all 
passes  our  way  royally,  the  great  Pileated  Wood 
pecker,  big  as  a  hawk,  with  his  black,  white-striped 
body  and  his  flaming,  upstanding  red  crest.  I 
imagine  he  looks  on  Theophilus,  the  totem  bird,  as 
some  sort  of  distant  relative.  He  retreats  with 
dignity,  but  he  retreats,  and  if  we  are  to  observe 
him,  it  must  be  from  the  passive  standpoint  of  the 
proverbial  "  bump  on  a  log." 

Before  getting  up  in  the  morning,  we  seize  many 

in 


THE  CABIN 

such  opportunities  for  close  observation.  Our  camp 
blanket  is  red,  and  to  this  day  a  certain  Humming 
bird  is  hoping  yet  to  solve  the  sweetness  of  what  he 
thinks  to  be  a  gorgeous  and  gigantic  flower.  We 
hear  the  swift  darting  hum  of  the  little  creature, 
followed  by  the  deeper  tone  as  he  hovers  suspended. 
There  he  balances,  sometimes  not  a  foot  from  our 
faces,  gazing  intently  on  that  great  patch  of  red. 

The  Chipmunks,  too,  tiny  fellows  not  over  a  quarter 
the  size  of  the  Eastern  species,  consider  the  bed 
somewhat  of  a  dare.  Its  base  is  a  flake  of  hay 
embezzled  from  the  horses'  late-autumn  supply, 
and  that  forms  the  attraction  for  the  little  squirrels. 
They  consume  ten  minutes  screwing  up  their  cour 
age,  dart  fearfully  under  the  edge  of  the  canvas, 
reappear  carrying  a  head  of  barley,  perch  on  the 
headboard  to  eat  it,  one  beady  black  eye  comically 
aslant  at  us.  It  is  exceedingly  interesting  to  see 
thus  such  delicately  fashioned  woods  creatures  at 
such  very  close  range. 

To  the  larger  Pine  Squirrels,  however,  we  are  to 
be  considered  in  the  light  of  an  inexcusable  outrage. 
A  great  tree-trunk  descends  to  the  head  of  our  bed, 
and  down  this  every  morning  a  Pine  Squirrel  would 
venture,  to  tell  us  what  he  thought  of  us.  He  squatted 
quite  flat  behind,  raised  himself  slightly  on  his  fore- 
paws,  and  chattered  nervously.  Every  moment 

112 


ON  BIRDS  AND  LIVING  THINGS 

or  so  he  would  jerk  his  tail  and  advance  another  foot 
or  so  down  the  tree.  The  nearer  he  got,  the  shorter 
his  descents,  the  jerkier  his  tail,  and  the  louder  his 
scoldings.  Finally  the  awful  proximity  would  break 
down  his  nerve-sustained  courage.  With  a  shriek 
of  released  terror  he  would  turn  and  skitter  madly 
to  the  top  of  the  tree,  gibbering  as  though  pursued 
by  ten  thousand  devils.  Once  in  safety  from  his 
imaginary  dangers,  he  congratulated  himself  for 
some  time  in  a  low  voice,  and  examined  his  precious 
tail  to  see  if  it  had  sustained  any  damage.  Gradually 
his  indignation  mounted.  He  looked  down  and 
saw  us  still  there.  After  a  minute  longer  of  doubt, 
he  would  decide  to  try  it  again. 

Between  the  dogs  and  the  three  kinds  of  squirrels 
common  about  our  Cabin,  is  perpetual  war.  By 
experience  each  knows  accurately  how  far  it  can  be 
adventured.  Apparently  bold  Chipmunks  perch 
saucily  within  a  few  feet  of  the  dogs;  the  latter, 
beyond  a  quiver  of  the  nostrils,  betray  scant  interest. 
They  know,  and  the  Chipmunk  knows,  that  the 
way  of  escape  is  from  that  point  infallible.  Ap 
parently  prudent  Douglas  Squirrels  appear  in  an 
opening  fifty  yards  away;  instantly  with  eager  whines 
the  dogs  tear  away  in  a  scrambling  pursuit.  Some 
times  they  butt  their  noses  against  the  tree  up  which, 
with  terrified  chatterings,  Mr.  Douglas  has  just 

"3 


THE  CABIN 

managed  to  escape.  Sometimes  he  loses  his  life. 
It  is  a  fair  game,  and  the  nature  of  a  dog  is  to  hunt. 
We  would  not  be  justified  in  interference.  Also 
such  incidents  do  not  seem  to  discourage  the  squir 
rels  in  the  least.  Instantly  we  appear,  the  word 
goes  about  through  the  woodland  that  the  Dis- 
pensors  of  Favours  are  returned  accompanied  by 
their  Dragons.  In  the  squirrel  mind,  evidently, 
one  consideration  far  outbalances  the  other,  for 
within  a  few  days  ten  of  the  little  animals  appear 
where  before  was  but  one. 

They  are  easily  tamed,  but  we  have  never  at 
tempted  especially  to  gain  their  confidence.  It 
would  not  be  fair.  California  John  was  once  telling 
us  of  a  fawn  that  came  every  morning  to  the  head  of 
his  meadow  to  feed  among  the  domestic  animals. 

"I  believe  you  could  tame  him!"  cried  Billy. 
"Why  don't  you  try?" 

"Oh,  he'd  gentle  all  right,"  replied  California 
John,  "but,  ma'am,  I  don't  believe  in  gentling 
no  wild  critter  whatever  that  I  can't  take  care  of.  It 
just  makes  it  easy  for  the  first  fellow  with  a  gun  or 
claws  that  comes  along." 

The  Mountain  Quail,  beautiful  helmeted  and 
plumed  birds,  found  our  clearing  good  during  all  of 
one  season.  Since  then  they  have  disappeared,  not 
only  from  our  meadow,  but  from  our  ridge.  I  sup- 

114 


ON  BIRDS  AND  LIVING  THINGS 

pose  the  feed  is  better  somewhere  else.  Animals 
and  birds  like  to  frequent  the  same  places,  but  it  is 
a  mistake  to  suppose  that  they  necessarily  confine 
themselves  to  one  locality.  I  believe  they  have 
various  estates  which  they  inhabit  as  the  fancy 
strikes  them  —  a  Watering  Place  on  Whiskey  Ridge; 
a  Cone  Forest  on  Pine  Ridge;  a  Pirlon  Preserve  on 
Goat  Mountain,  and  so  on.  On  a  year  when  cones 
are  scarce  with  us,  the  squirrels  desert  us  almost 
completely,  and  we  hear  of  them  on  the  mountains 
away  across  the  tremendous  gorge  of  the  Joaquin. 
We  are  sorry  to  lose  the  Mountain  Quail,  and  hope 
some  year  they  will  come  back  to  take  the  shutters 
down  here.  It  was  great  fun  to  see  the  well-groomed, 
sleek,  anxious  mothers  marshalling  the  ranks  of 
their  scurrying,  comical,  small  progeny. 


THE  MILL 


XI 

THE  MILL 

THERE  is  a  sawmill  two  miles  distant,  over 
near  the  bluffs.  It  growls  away  to  itself, 
and  pretends  it  is  wonderfully  big  and  important, 
whereas  it  is  in  reality  a  very  little  mill  indeed.  For 
twenty-five  years  it  has  been  amusing  the  forest  by 
biting  at  her  fringes.  Two  million  feet  a  year  is 
considered  pretty  good.*  It  sends  its  lumber  out 
by  teams  consisting  of  from  six  to  ten  span  of  horses 
and  mules,  a  journey  of  three  days.  The  driver 
rides  one  of  his  wheel  horses,  and  for  twelve  hours 
a  day  is  lost  in  thick  clouds  of  dust.  At  the  mill 
itself  one  circular  saw  keeps  as  busy  as  it  can  —  when 
it  is  in  working  order;  two  teams  of  mules  haul  the 
large  logs  in  from  the  woods;  and  a  donkey  engine 
yanks  the  timbers  from  the  bed  to  which  they  have 
fallen.  The  mill-hands  are  mostly  the  sons  of  small 
ranchers,  young  mountaineers,  and  the  like.  The 
woodsmen,  experts  with  axe  and  saw,  have,  some 
of  them,  drifted  out  from  the  pines  of  Michigan  and 

*  A  modern  plant  cuts  fifty  or  sixty  million  a  year. 

119 


THE  CABIN 

Wisconsin.  They  work  hard,  as  all  woodsmen  do, 
and  have  no  time  for  visiting.  Two  miles  in  the 
mountains  would  be  a  new  measure  of  distance  to  a 
motorist,  say.  We  see  the  twenty  or  thirty  of  the 
mill  crew  only  when  we  visit  the  scene  of  their 
work.  They  are  non-existent  in  our  life. 

This  general  rule  falls  to  the  ground  in  the  case  of 
a  few,  however.  Some,  by  virtue  of  especial  char 
acter,  have  grown  to  be  our  friends. 

The  master  sawyer,  for  example.  All  day  he 
stands  by  his  levers,  sending  the  log  carriage  back 
and  forth,  turning  the  log  over  by  means  of  the 
nigger  hooks,  gauging  accurately  how  best  to  get  the 
most  good  lumber  from  the  material.  Each  log 
is  a  problem  by  itself.  For  a  great  many  summers 
his  eyes  have  followed  the  incessant  movement 
before  them,  until  they  have  grown  steady  with  a 
tired  abstraction.  When  we  ride  over  to  the  mill 
after  our  letters,  we  always  go  in  to  see  the  sawyer. 
The  rattle  of  the  machinery  and  the  exultant  cres 
cendo  shriek  of  the  saw  fill  all  the  possibilities  of 
sound.  We  touch  him  on  the  shoulder  and  let  him 
know  we  are  there.  He  grins  cordially  at  us;  we 
grin  cordially  back  at  him.  Perhaps  we  shriek  a 
word  or  two  at  the  top  of  our  lungs.  That  is  all, 
but  we  go  away  feeling  we  have  had  quite  a  satis 
factory  visit.  This  sawyer  has  lived  all  his  life  in 

120 


THE  MILL 

the  mountains  —  in  fact,  the  man  who  wrought  at 
our  meadow  so  many  years  before  bore  his  name. 
He  has  property,  and  a  family,  and  a  slow  benevo 
lent  patience  that  has  taken  care  of  every  forlorn  and 
incompetent  relative,  in  direct  defiance  of  his  own 
interests  and  those  of  his  boys.  In  repose  his  face 
has  a  Lincolnian  sadness,  but  when  he  smiles  it 
twinkles  all  over  like  sun  on  broken  water.  He 
possesses  a  fiddle  on  which  he  plays  jiggy,  foot- 
tapping  things.  His  home  is  down  the  mountain 
at  the  Forks.  There  he  often  furnishes  the  music 
for  some  of  the  dances.  The  quadrilles  are  es 
pecially  grand,  for  then  the  musician,  both  eyes 
closed,  calls  out.  No  one  knows  what  he  says,  or 
what  it  all  has  to  do  with  the  figures;  and  no  one 
cares.  Each  remark  is  jerked  out  with  an  accom 
panying  strong  sweep  of  the  bow  and  swaying  of 
the  body.  It  is  all  about  "honey!'1  - "  Pig'n  a 
corn!"  "  Po-liteness ! "  "Swing  'round/'  "Go 
down,  Moses!"  "Coon  up  a  plum  tree!"  and 
various  inarticulate  but  inspiring  sounds. 

"Uncle  Charley"  has  a  wife  and  four  half-grown 
boys.  Every  once  in  a  while  some  or  all  of  them  take 
the  long  ride  up  the  mountain  to  see  us.  The  boys 
patiently  try  to  catch  chipmunks,  or  go  swimming, 
or  generally  pop  around  the  woods.  The  grown 
ups  settle  down  for  a  good  talk.  The  mountain 

121 


THE  CABIN 

people  are  exceedingly  interesting.  They  live  a 
life  that  depends  more  than  the  common  on  its  in 
dividual  resource;  and  at  the  same  time  the  better 
class  of  them  possess  a  remarkably  high  standard 
of  taste  and  education.  Books,  and  good  ones,  are 
abundant.  In  addition  are  certain  qualities  of 
hospitality,  the  breadth  of  view  incidental  to  the 
meeting  of  many  types  on  a  plane  of  equality,  and 
independence  in  the  manner  of  thinking.  I  like 
the  mountain  people. 

For  here  you  must  know  all  your  neighbours  for 
fifty  miles  about.  In  more  crowded  centres  one  picks 
and  chooses  even  his  most  superficial  acquaintance 
ships.  As  a  consequence  certain  classes  of  men  fall 
witside  your  experience  completely,  and  to  that 
extent  your  knowledge  and  sympathies  are  limited. 

But  a  sparsely  settled  region  is  different.  The 
dweller  therein  has  full  opportunity  to  know  all  his 
microcosmos.  He  knows  Uncle  Charley's  folks, 
with  their  more  refined  tastes;  he  is  on  intimate 
terms  with  the  Forest  Supervisor's  people  of  college 
education  and  sweet  and  gentle  breeding;  he  comes 
in  contact  with  the  Washington  men  —  the  in 
spectors,  timber  experts,  grazing  men,  all  the  num 
berless  technical. experts;  he  meets  and  talks  with 
tourists  and  campers  of  all  classes  on  their  way  to 
the  higher  peaks.  In  addition  he  knows  all  about 

122 


THE  MILL 

his  other  neighbours;  and  as  any  society,  no  matter 
how  sparse,  possesses  in  itself  the  elements  of  a 
community,  he  is  in  contact  with  all  classes,  from 
the  debased  caterpillar-eating  Indians  at  the  ranch- 
eria,  through  the  half-breeds,  and  on  up  past  the 
"white  trash,"  to  the  different  independent,  semi- 
patriarchal  and  always  individual  households  scat 
tered  through  the  Hills.  If  Smith's  colt  dies  of 
rattlesnake  bite,  it  is  a  matter  of  personal  interest; 
if  Jones's  son  is  getting  to  hang  around  the  saloon 
at  the  Corners,  you  must  do  something  about  it. 
Public  opinion  is  nowhere  so  concretely  expressed 
nor  so  powerful  in  affecting  general  attitude  as  in 
the  mountains;  —  nor  so  powerless  to  affect  in 
dividual  attitude.  A  man  easily  works  out  his 
conduct  of  life  —  whether  for  good  or  evil  —  and 
lives  by  it  "spite  of  hell  or  high  water." 

And  to  a  large  extent  he  is  allowed  to  do  so.  Men 
are  taken  objectively  in  the  mountains.  That  is 
to  say,  their  idiosyncrasies  in  the  manner  of  doing 
things  or  of  looking  at  things  are  taken  as  so  many 
unchangeable,  natural  phenomena.  One  adjusts 
himself  to  them  just  exactly  as  he  would  take  into 
consideration  the  sets  of  current  in  swimming  a  horse 
across  a  stream.  The  more  introspective  peoples 
are  apt  to  ask  themselves  whys  and  wherefores. 

"How  could  Jones  think  and  do  so  and  so!"  we 

123 


THE  CABIN 

cry.  "I  should  think  a  man  with  a  grain  of  sense 
would  have  seen  it!  I  can't  understand  how  a  man 
gets  at  feeling  the  way  he  does!" 

So  we  go  on  worrying  ourselves  with  the  recon 
struction  of  Jones. 

The  mountaineer,  on  the  other  hand,  explains 
everything  by  saying  that  that's  the  way  Jones  does, 
and  lets  it  go,  and  forgets  it.  As  well  try  to  explain 
why  Jones  has  a  sharp  nose.  The  attitude  is  at 
once  a  result  of  and  conducive  to  the  fullest  ex 
pression  of  individualism. 

From  the  mill  also  we  draw  our  friend  the  hunter. 
He  stays  on  the  mountain  all  the  year  around.  In 
winter,  when  the  snows  come,  he  looks  after  the 
mill's  property  — shovels  snow  off  roofs  and  gener 
ally  keeps  things  in  repair.  Constantly  he  deludes 
himself  that  he  is  going  to  quit  and  go  down  to  the 
valley.  He  never  does.  He  lives  high  up  on  a 
rocky  knoll.  It  is  facetiously  fortified  with  old 
pieces  of  pipe  stuck  out  at  all  angles  to  represent 
cannon.  When  you  get  up  there,  you  are  met  by 
a  cynical  'coon  at  the  end  of  a  chain.  He  retires 
promptly  to  the  inner  recesses  of  his  kennel.  A 
moment  later  you  find  yourself  in  a  really  comfort 
able  and  clean  cabin.  It  is  decorated  with  litho 
graphed  calendars,  skins,  deer's  antlers  and  Indian 
baskets.  The  latter  are  our  hunter's  specialty, 

124 


THE  MILL 

and  he  will  wax  enthusiastic  for  you  over  the 
variation  in  a  border  pattern. 

About  once  a  week  he  comes  over  to  see  us,  gener 
ally  armed  with  rifle  and  revolver.  He  perches  on 
the  steps  for  an  hour,  gravely  exchanges  news  as  to 
game  seen  during  the  week,  confides  to  us  as  to 
where  and  by  whom  deer  have  been  killed,  relates 
a  few  trapping  incidents  that  curl  Billy  up  inside, 
declines  to  stay  to  a  meal,  and  departs.  Generally 
he  brings  us  in  our  mail  by  way  of  excuse.  Each 
spring  when  we  return,  he  tells  us  carefully  just  how 
the  winter  has  been.  Quite  of  his  own  volition  he 
snowshoes  over  occasionally  to  see  how  the  Cabin  is 
getting  on.  Two  years  ago,  he  says,  it  was  buried 
to  the  ridge-pole,  and  only  the  tip  of  the  smoke-pipe 
was  sticking  out. 

Then  there  were,  until  this  year,  the  Stout  broth 
ers.  We  met  the  first  as  he  was  "  nicking "  a  big 
sugar  pine.  He  is  one  of  those  very  tall,  very  slender 
mountaineers  with  the  strength  and  spring  of  whale 
bone  in  his  long,  slim  body.  His  brothers  are  like 
him.  They  are  musicians.  One  blows  through 
a  cornet,  one  twangs  a  guitar,  the  other  scrapes  a 
fiddle.  One  evening  they  packed  all  these  things 
on  their  backs,  collected  Uncle  Charley  and  his 
instrument,  and  walked  over  after  dark  for  a  grand 
musical  pow-wow.  Uncle  Charley's  wife,  all  her 

125 


THE  CABIN 

boys,  her  adopted  Indian  girl,  and  three  young 
people  who  were  staying  with  her  were  already  oc 
cupying  the  Guest  Camp  above  the  Cabin,  under 
the  trees.  We  built  a  roaring  camp-fire,  uncased 
the  instruments,  and 

But  let  us  go  back  two  days.  It  was  noon,  and  I 
had  walked  over  to  the  mill  to  post  some  letters. 
With  me  were  Tuxana  and  Rattler,  the  latter  at  that 
time  six  months  old.  The  old  lady  was  padding 
along  at  my  heels  as  usual,  but  the  puppy,  gangle- 
legged  and  ridiculous,  was  far  afield  investigating 
everything.  Naturally,  when  we  approached  the 
mill,  the  mill  dogs,  seven  in  number,  of  various  and 
astonishing  mongrelism,  rushed  forth.  As  natur 
ally  Rattler  fled  for  the  tall  timber.  This  aroused 
Tuxana.  No  one  had  paid  any  attention  to  her, 
but  the  outrage  of  seven  against  the  one  youngster 
was  too  much  for  her.  Without  saying  a  word,  she 
shot  out  from  behind  me  and  hurled  herself,  like  a 
missile  from  a  catapult,  upon  the  histrionic  seven. 

Tuxana's  usual  method  of  fighting  is  to  clamp 
and  hang  on.  It  is  at  once  simple  and  effective, 
for  Tuxana  has  a  face  like  a  catfish.  But  to-day, 
against  numbers,  she  shifted  her  tactics.  In  about 
a  minute  she  had  the  redoubtable  seven  licked  to  a 
standstill.  Some  fled  with  shrieks,  some  lay  down 
and  held  all  four  feet  in  the  air  as  token  of  submis- 

126 


THE  MILL 

sion,  some  crawled  under  buildings.  The  last  one 
she  tackled,  however,  put  up  more  of  a  fight,  and 
him  she  proceeded  to  slaughter  in  approved  fashion. 
We  hauled  her  off,  with  some  difficulty,  and  I  led 
her  around  by  my  belt  strap  until  her  bristles  had 
gone  down.  For  this  energetic  combat  was  Tuxana 
much  admired. 

On  the  evening  of  our  projected  camp-fire  music 
that  last  antagonist  had  the  bad  taste  and  judgment 
to  follow  the  Stout  boys  over  to  our  camp;  and  they 
had  not  noticed  it.  Here  was  Tuxana's  chance. 
She  is  the  most  peaceful  old  girl  that  ever  wagged  a 
tail,  but  a  personal  enemy  she  never  forgets.  Rid^ 
ing  along  the  roads  at  home  we  pass  fifty  dogs  to 
which  Tuxana  pays  not  the  compliment  of  a  side 
glance.  Then  her  ears  cock  forward,  her  hair 
bristles,  her  eyes  fix  on  a  canine  away  ofF  in  the 
distance.  She  is  off  with  her  tearing  scramble. 
And  no  matter  how  far  away  that  dog  is,  when  he 
sees  Tuxana  coming  he  departs  rapidly. 

So,  no  sooner  was  the  orchestra  tuned  up  than  the 
most  unholy  row  broke  out  from  the  woods.  We 
all  ran  out  to  see  what  was  the  matter.  Tuxana 
had  missed  the  throat  hold  for  which  she  always 
tries,  but  had  clamped  firmly  on  the  dog's  flank. 
There  she  hung  on,  biting  deeper  every  instant. 
The  dog,  frantic  with  fear  and  pain,  was  snapping 

127 


THE  CABIN 

blindly  in  all  directions.  When  the  men  tried  to 
allay  the  battle,  they  made  the  mistake  of  reaching 
for  Tuxana.  Thereupon  the  other  dog,  his  fore 
quarters  threshing  in  all  directions  like  the  head  of 
a  scotched  snake,  bit  rapidly  and  accurately.  In 
six  seconds  the  three  Stout  boys  and  Uncle  Charley 
had  from  two  to  five  bites  apiece.  Then  somebody 
grabbed  the  mill  dog  by  the  neck.  When  we  finally 
got  Tuxana  away,  she  carried  with  her  a  substantial 
piece  of  that  luckless  canine. 

Billy  opened  her  medicine  case,  and  the  victims 
lined  up  in  a  row  as  though  they  wanted  to  buy 
tickets  for  some  popular  success.  Bandage  rolls, 
calendula,  and  peroxide  were  consumed  in  vast 
quantities.  Billy  had  a  chance  to  try  her  skill. 

Billy,  inspired  with  the  idea  of  acquiring  knowl 
edge  useful  to  the  Trail,  once  joined  two  classes  - 
First  Aid  to  the  Injured,  and  Cooking.  In  the 
former  she  learned  how  to  distinguish  drunkenness 
from  apoplexy.  In  the  second  she  gained  some 
skill  in  the  construction  of  Charlotte  Russe  and 
Floating  Island.  Unfortunately  in  the  high  country 
we  have  not  yet  run  across  anybody  lying  by  the 
trail  —  bottles  are  not  easily  transported  in  quantity 
on  a  pack-horse.  Neither  have  we  arrived  at  a 
yearning  for  such  desserts  contemporaneous  with 
a  possession  of  eggs  and  milk.  A  family  doctor 

128 


THE  MILL 

showed  her  how  to  bandage,  however;  and  now 
the  knowledge  came  in  very  handy.  She  turned  out 
a  good,  workmanlike  job,  and  her  four  patients  were 
wound  to  the  elbows.  But  we  hadn't  enough  good 
fingers  among  us  to  make  a  single  note  of  music. 

The  mill  is  our  point  of  touch  with  the  world 
outside.  Through  it  we  get  our  mail,  occasionally. 
Its  teamsters  are  very  good  to  us  in  the  matter  of 
tucking  in  a  box  or  so  of  supplies  when  they  come 
up  the  mountain  empty.  It  is  quite  an  adventure 
to  take  Flapjack  and  go  over  to  the  mill.  We  never 
know  what  we  are  going  to  find.  Uncle  Charley's 
wife  may  have  sent  us  a  little  sweet  corn,  or  some 
eggs,  or  a  watermelon;  there  may  be  letters  or  a 
magazine  or  so;  or  possibly  some  precious  article 
we  sent  for  so  long  ago  that  we  have  utterly  forgotten 
it  turns  up  at  last  as  a  pleasant  surprise.  Or  again  the 
total  results  of  a  long  journey  through  the  woods  may 
be  a  circular  and  two  unreceipted  bills  from  home. 

This  year  the  mill  has  sawed  its  last  in  the  little 
clearing  where  it  has  lived  for  twenty-five  years.  It 
has  made  a  tiny  hole  in  the  forest,  and  has  left  some 
ugly  debris  in  its  slashings.  But  even  where  it  cut 
two  years  ago,  the  young  trees  are  springing  thick. 
The  acreage  of  its  cut  is  so  small  that  there  is  not 
much  danger  of  fire,  and  if  fire  is  kept  out,  the 
forest  will  soon  reestablish  itself. 

129 


ON  STRANGERS 


XII 
ON  STRANGERS 

WHENEVER  you  see  a  dust  through  the  trees, 
you  look  first  to  make  sure  it  is  not  raised 
by  stray  cattle.  Then  when  you  are  certain  of  your 
horse  and  man,  you  start  a  fire  in  the  little  stove. 
That  is  an  invariable  rule  in  the  mountains. 

The  logic  is  simple,  unanswerable,  and  correct. 
The  presence  of  the  man  argues  that  he  has  ridden 
from  some  distant  point,  for  here  all  points  are  more 
or  less  distant;  and  the  fact  in  turn  proves  that  some 
what  of  exercise  and  space  of  time  have  intervened 
since  last  he  has  eaten.  Therefore,  no  matter 
what  the  time  of  day,  you  feed  him.  It  works  out 
like  a  mathematical  formula. 

Similarly  in  other  camps,  after  you  have  chatted 
for  a  few  moments,  some  one  will  slip  quietly  away. 
A  sound  of  splitting  crackles,  a  thin,  fragrant  smoke 
odour  enters  your  nostrils.  After  an  interval  there 
is  brought  to  you  a  lunch  to  which  your  attention  is 
invited.  The  lunch  varies  from  beans  on  a  tin  plate 
and  rank  coffee  in  a  tin  cup,  to  tea  and  yeast-bread, 


THE  CABIN 

and  gooseberry  jelly  and  layer  cake,  according  to 
whose  camp  you  may  happen  to  be  in.  But  its 
welcome  is  the  same,  and  you  find  yourself  respond 
ing  avidly  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  the  cordial 
invitation,  "eat  hearty."  Such  is  mountain  hos 
pitality  and  mountain  convention.  It  is  as  much  a 
matter  of  course  as  the  urban  ring  at  the  door  bell,  and 
is  no  more  to  be  omitted  than  the  offer  of  a  chair. 

"  Light  and  rest  yo'  hat " ;  "  Eat  hearty  " ;  "  Take 
care  of  yoreself."  These  three  speeches  can  cover 
the  entire  gamut  of  good-fellowship  —  greeting, 
entertainment,  and  good-bye. 

It  must  be  repeated;  one  knows  fewer  people  in 
the  wilderness,  but  he  knows  them  better.  He  has 
leisure  to  walk  all  around  them,  to  appraise  them, 
sound  their  depths,and  make  up  his  mind  about  them. 
In  crowded  centres  one  is  apt  to  know  types  and 
the  examples  thereof;  here  one  knows  individuals. 

Perhaps  a  little  more  philosophy  might  be  per 
mitted.  The  city  has  certain  work  to  be  done  — 
street-cars  to  drive,  elevators  to  run,  horses  to  con 
duct,  papers  to  sell,  shirts  to  make.  To  accom 
plish  it  she  possesses  millions  of  hands.  A  slight 
push  from  each  pair  will  accomplish  the  task.  So 
we  see  men  whose  vitality  is  low,  whose  vices  are 
many,  whose  working  days  are  few,  whose  capac 
ities  are  scant,  filling  well  enough  necessary  in- 

134 


ON  STRANGERS 

dustrial  positions.  A  man  can  get  drunk,  sober  up, 
and  still  wash  windows  and  sweep  the  office.  The 
headache  is  uncomfortable;  the  task  nevertheless 
is  done.  That  is  because  it  is  a  single  task,  a  simple 
task,  an  invariable  task.  For  all  other  needs  the 
city  has  other  hands.  A  feeble  push  at  the  wheel  is 
unavailing.  Multiplied  by  a  million,  the  wheel  turns. 

So  we  constantly  see  wrecks  of  men,  sodden  with 
drink,  eaten  with  disease,  enervated  with  vice,  tak 
ing  somehow  their  small  part  in  the  life  of  the  city, 
and  receiving  therefrom  their  living,  such  as  it  is. 
The  city  makes  them  what  they  are,  but  it  permits 
them  at  least  to  subsist.  Elsewhere  they  would  not 
last  a  week.  When  they  drop,  at  the  end  of  a  greater 
or  lesser  period  of  efficiency,  there  are  plenty  of 
others  to  take  their  places.  The  triumphant  vitality 
of  the  city  is  unlowered.  Its  mighty  works  go  on, 
so  that  in  ten  years  it  has  built,  cleansed,  developed 
wonderful  and  titanic  things.  But  the  average 
vitality  and  efficiency  of  its  individuals  are  through 
out  very  low. 

In  a  new  country,  on  the  other  hand,  a  man  must 
be  strong,  healthy,  and  self-reliant.  It  is  not  suffi 
cient  that  he  acquire  the  ability  to  punch  holes, 
certain  that  for  all  time  the  man  next  —  or  one  like 
him  —  will  stick  in  the  rivet,  and  the  man  beyond 
tap  with  the  hammer.  Such  partial  activities  would 


THE  CABIN 

here  avail  him  little.  He  is  not  a  finger  or  an  arm 
or  an  eye  or  any  other  single  member  of  an  industrial 
body;  he  is  the  industrial  body  itself.  If  he  wants 
a  thing  riveted,  he  must  know  how  to  rivet. 

And  since  riveting  is  not  the  only  thing  necessary 
to  life,  he  must  possess  reserves  of  vitality  beyond 
the  tap  of  the  hammer.  He  must  be  healthy,  free 
from  the  corroding  vices.  When  he  loses  his  vigour, 
he  loses  his  chance.  His  community,  scattered, 
miserly  of  men,  needs  his  whole  ability.  It  is  not 
satisfied  with  part,  and  if  he  deliberately  withholds 
himself,  it  soon  dispenses  with  him  entirely. 

Of  course  it  would  be  a  stupid  argument  that 
would  claim  all  virtue  for  the  country.  That  is  not 
the  purpose  of  this  homily.  The  foregoing  remarks 
may  be  more  clearly  understood  when  you  focus 
them  in  this  manner: 

In  settled  communities  it  is  of  course  both  im 
possible  and  undesirable  to  welcome  all  comers. 
Sheer  weight  of  numbers  would  preclude  acquaint 
ance  with  everybody,  even  were  that  desirable.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  not.  The  exceptional  human 
itarian  may  see  some  interest  in  the  Jones-Brown- 
Robinson  flat-dwellers  or  c  mmuters  with  their 
narrow,  stuffy  interests,  their  rubber  plants,  their 
small  circle  of  friends,  and  their  appalling  boredom. 
Most  of  us  are  thoroughly  satiated  after  the  first 

136 


ON  STRANGERS 

dreary  meeting.  We  prefer  to  pick  our  friends 
according  to  our  tastes,  and  we  do  so.  Thus  we 
have  an  enjoyable  time,  but  we  are  apt  to  narrow 
our  sympathies. 

Out  of  civilization,  however,  it  is  possible  to  meet 
and  enjoy  every  passer-by.  Some  are  more  in 
teresting  than  others.  And  some  are  dangerously 
close  to  being  utter  reprobates  and  scalawags.  But 
one  and  all  are  vital,  otherwise  they  would  not 
exist.  In  the  course  of  a  season  one  meets  the  com 
ponents  of  a  social  cosmos,  at  close  range,  sym 
pathetically,  on  a  common  ground  of  equality. 
Thus  one  acquires  several  new  points  of  view.  Once 
in  Arizona,  while  following  the  chuck-wagon  for 
the  experience,  Billy  was  quite  taken  with  the 
appearance,  the  manner,  and  the  conversation  of 
one  of  the  cowboys.  After  she  got  to  know  him 
quite  well,  we  informed  her  of  the  known  fact  that 
he  was  a  cattle  rustler  and  train  robber.  Since  then 
she  has  had  a  modified  though  somewhat  puzzled 
opinion  of  hold-ups. 

Again,  we  were  camped  on  an  old  forgotten  trail 
above  one  of  the  tremendous  canons  of  the  Sierra 
Nevada.  About  evening  a  man  with  two  pack 
animals  drifted  in  and  made  camp.  His  being  there 
puzzled  me.  The  trail  had  long  since  been  super 
seded  by  another  several  miles  shorter.  No  way 

U7 


THE  CABIN 

led  from  the  upper  canon  through  this  particular 
meadow.  Unless  he  had  made  a  deliberate  detour, 
I  could  not  imagine  why  he  had  hit  that  old  trail. 
Voicing  these  cogitations  to  Billy,  she  offered  an 
easy  solution. 

"Go  over  and  ask  him,"  said  she. 

"And  perhaps  he  has  a  band  of  sheep  trespassing 
up  in  the  ledges  —  or  a  prospect  this  side  the  mina 
rets  —  or  some  other  good  reason.  It  isn't  polite 
to  ask  people  things,"  I  replied. 

"Oh,  dear!"  lamented  Billy,"!  don't  think  I'll  ever 
get  used  to  this  Western  watch-the-other-fellow- 
to-see-if-he's-going-to-hit-you-first  way.  Now  I 
should  have  asked  him  straight  out,  if  I  were  a  man." 

"And  got  into  trouble,"  said  I. 

For  it  most  decidedly  is  not  polite  to  ask  a  man  his 
business  or  where  he  is  from.  When  a  stranger  shows 
up  out  of  a  howling  wilderness,  a  great  desire  fills  your 
soul  to  know  all  about  him,  and  whence  he  comes, 
and  how  far  it  is,  and  whether  the  trail  is  rough, 
and  whether  he's  had  fishing,  or  killed  a  deer,  and 
all  the  rest  of  it.  That  is  natural.  But  you  must  not. 

And  therefore  your  powers  of  observation  grow 

on  you.     No  detail  of  equipment  escapes  your  eye. 

Sherlock  Holmes  would    have  enjoyed    comparing 

notes  with  a  good  Westerner.     One  sizes  up  his  man 

•    and  his  outfit  and  draws  his  conclusions,  silently. 

138 


ON  STRANGERS 

If  there  is  no  reason  for  concealment,  a  few  logs  of 
wood  blazing  and  an  ounce  of  tobacco  glowing  will 
bring  the  fact  out.  Our  man  had  heard  that  the  old 
trail  existed,  and  he  thought  he'd  try  it — that  was  all. 

Occasionally  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  keep 
"tongues  off."  Billy,  Wes  and  I  were  camped  near 
the  main  crest.  We  were  about  as  far  from  rail 
roads,  towns,  and  settlements  as  it  is  physically 
possible  to  get.  At  sundown  a  horseman  rode  in. 

"How's  chances  for  feeding  my  horse  and  me?" 
he  asked. 

"There's  the  meadow,"  said  I,  "and  I  guess  we 
can  manage  to  rustle  you  a  little  grub." 

He  unsaddled  and  turned  his  horse  loose,  joined 
us  at  supper  and  breakfast,  resaddled,  and  departed. 

There  was  nothing  unusual  in  that.  But  note 
this:  he  had  no  blankets,  no  grub,  no  slicker,  not 
even  a  tin  cup.  He  was  at  least  four  days'  ride 
from  the  nearest  house.  Moreover,  he  was  heavily 
armed  with  a  carbine  and  two  Colts. 

We  talked  on  indifferent  subjects  all  the  evening. 
He  made  no  mention  of  his  errand  or  where  he  was 
from,  or  how  he  subsisted,  or  whither  he  was  going. 
So  we  did  not  ask.  In  the  morning  he  caught  up 
his  horse,  saddled  him,  and  approached  me. 

"How  much?"  he  inquired  laconically,  thrusting 
his  hand  in  his  pocket. 


THE  CABIN 

"Nothing." 

"You're  the  first  folks  I've  seen  that  didn't  take 
all  the  traffic  would  bear,"  said  he,  drawing  his  hand 
out  again.  "Them  trout  tasted  pretty  good." 

"You  must  have  been  in  the  valley,"  I  suggested, 
for  I  knew  mountain  hospitality  too  well  to  suspect  it. 

"  I  have,"  said  he  grimly,  "  —  and  then  some." 
He  looked  up  at  me  keenly.  "  That's  where  I  ate 
last,  three  days  back." 

While  he  was  tightening  his  cinch  preparatory 
to  departure,  he  told  me  his  story  in  little  jerks. 
Evidently  he  had  been  sizing  us  up  ever  since  the 
first  moment  he  had  hit  our  camp. 

He  was  a  sheriff,  from  Goldfiel(Js,  in  pursuit  of 
two  horse-thieves.  He  had  left  at  a  moment's  notice, 
without  preparation.  The  trail  had  led  him  over 
the  desert,  one  hundred  and  ten  miles  of  it,  across 
the  great  ranges  twice,  now  back  again.  He  trusted 
to  luck  for  food. 

"I've  had  pretty  good  luck,"  said  he.  "I'll  get 
'em  yet." 

But  often  and  often  inscrutable  visitors  will  sit 
all  evening  at  your  camp-fire,  discuss  with  you  the 
country,  the  trails,  politics,  mining  and  the  county 
supervisors,  only  to  leave  you  next  day  none  the 
wiser  as  to  their  identity,  their  business,  or  even 
their  names. 

140 


OUR  NEIGHBOURS 


XIIL 
OUR  NEIGHBOURS 

THE  Cabin  is  not  on  one  of  the  highways  of  th« 
mountains.  Our  trail  leads  nowhere  but 
to  ourselves.  One  thoroughly  conversant  with  the 
turnings  of  the  Ridge  and  its  numerous  canons  will 
here  find  a  short  cut  to  the  Shuteye  country,  but 
these  people  are  few.  Nevertheless,  down  our  road 
in  the  course  of  the  season  many  and  varied  visitors 
find  their  way. 

There  are  the  Rangers,  of  course.  The  summer 
headquarters  of  the  Supervisor  are  at  the  other  end 
of  the  Ridge.  Thence  come  the  men  of  the  Forest 
Service  on  their  varied  business.  We  know  them 
all,  and  like  them,  and  are  always  glad  to  see  their 
ponies  sidling  up  to  our  hitch  rail.  The  summer  is 
their  busy  season.  All  the  manifold  business  of 
the  Forest  is  pacing  its  swiftest.  Fire  fighting, 
sometimes  sixty  hours  at  a  stretch,  trail  and  bridge 
building,  the  regulation  of  grazing,  the  watch  for 
trespass,  the  sale  of  timber,  the  constant  supervision 
of  all  the  special  privileges  the  National  Forests  now 


THE  CABIN 

offer  the  public,  the  compilation  of  reports,  all  keep 
them  riding  and  working  all  day  and  every  day. 
When  a  few  hours' leisure  offers,  they  string  barbed 
wire  around  their  pastures  and  build  posts,  cabins, 
corrals.  Constantly  they  are  meeting  new  emer 
gencies,  new  people,  new  ideas.  They  develop 
rapidly.  In  three  years  a  raw  mountain  boy,  or  a 
youth  callow  from  the  forest  schools,  has  turned  to 
a  quiet,  steady-eyed,  self-reliant,  toughened  piece 
of  steel  and  whalebone  capable  of  and  enthusiastic 
for  any  duty  to  forward  his  beloved  Service. 

That  is,  if  he  sticks.  It  is  a  constant  source  of 
interest  and  amusement  to  contemplate  the  weeding- 
out  process.  Each  year  brings  its  crop  of  re 
cruits.  The  newcomer  generally  cherishes  a  hazy 
idea  that  a  Ranger's  chief  duty  is  to  ride  abroad 
pleasantly  on  patrols,  to  count  rings  in  tree-stumps, 
and  to  see  that  everybody  obeys  regulations.  Ten 
to  one  he  is  set  at  stretching  barbed  wire,  or  splitting 
cedar  posts,  or  digging  holes,  or  handling  large 
jagged  rocks.  When  his  hands  are  all  cut  and 
skinned,  his  muscles  sore,  and  his  back  tired,  he  is 
called  to  ride  a  hasty  six  hours  to  a  large  hot  fire  on 
a  side  hill.  Here  he  works  for  two  days  in  a  broiling 
sun,  over  broiling  coals,  with  little  water,  and  per 
haps  no  food.  He  gets  faint,  finally  sick.  He  tells 
the  Head  Ranger  these  painful  facts,  and  is  surprised 

144 


OUR  NEIGHBOURS 

to  discover  that  he  is  expected  to  go  ahead  anyway. 
Other  men  are  working  methodically,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  when  they  are  so  dry  that  their  tongues 
swell,  and  so  tired  that  they  stagger.  When  that  fire 
is  corralled,  all  ride  back  home  again.  Our  new 
Ranger  goes  to  bed  to  sleep  it  off".  After  a  few  hours 
he  is  awakened  and  told  of  another  fire  in  another 
direction  —  a  bigger  fire  than  the  last.  He  is  filled 
with  consternation. 

"We're  dead!"  he  cries.  "We  can't  do  anything 
more!" 

"We've  got  to,"  is  his  reply. 

Of  course  this  is  the  rough  end,  but  the  rough  end 
of  rangering  presents  itself  oftener  than  the  smooth 
middle.  At  the  end  of  the  season  our  youngster  — 
if  he  sticks  —  has  been  literally  tried  by  fire.  He 
looks  with  contempt  on  what  he  used  to  consider 
hard  work.  And  if  furthermore  he  can  develop 
intelligence,  tact,  and  resourcefulness  in  dealing 
with  men,  and  an  ability  to  get  on  with  his  fellows, 
he  is  in  a  fair  way  to  become  a  good  Ranger.  About 
one  out  of  four  succeeds. 

And  the  other  three  depart,  their  souls  filled  with 
a  great  disgust,  their  delusions  dissolved,  their  faith 
in  humanity  shaken.  One  function  only  have  thev 
served  —  that  of  supplying  those  of  sterner  quality 
with  the  material  for  camp-fire  jokes.  Rangers  havr 

MS 


THE  CABIN 

been  known  wickedly  to  sympathize  night  after  night 
with  the  terrible  woes  of  a  novice  with  the  sole  purpose 
of  drawing  those  woes  into  speech.  And  sympathy 
goes  far  toward  loosening  the  tongue  of  a  youngster 
whose  feet  are  sore,  whose  back  is  lame,  and  whose 
poor  hands  are  full  of  barbed-wire  punctures. 

The  men  who  remain  three  years  in  the  Service 
are  generally  there  to  stay.  They  are  filled  with 
an  enthusiasm  hard  to  understand  until  you  have 
ridden  and  worked  with  them,  studied  their  prob 
lems,  and  shared  their  triumphs.  In  the  old  days 
when  the  Land  Office  was  in  charge  and  appro 
priations  few,  it  was  no  unusual  thing  for  a  Ranger 
to  spend  up  to  half  his  monthly  salary  for  necessary 
tools  he  could  procure  in  no  other  way.  Now 
that  the  Bureau  of  Forestry  has  substituted  an 
honest  and  efficient  administration  for  the  old 
regime,  the  same  spirit  manifests  itself.  A  certain 
Sub-ranger,  with  wife  and  children  to  support,  was 
promoted  to  Ranger  with  an  increase  of  three  hun 
dred  dollars  a  year.  A  friend  congratulated  him  on 
his  raise  in  salary. 

"Damn  the  pay!"  rejoined  the  Ranger;  "it's 
getting  rid  of  that  'sub." 

Every  once  in  a  while  these  men  make  up  their 
minds  to  resign.  They  never  do.  The  reason  for 
the  resolution  is  generally  this : 

146 


OUR  NEIGHBOURS 

When  the  Land  Office  was  in  charge,  the  income 
from  the  National  Forests  was  about  $60,000  a  year. 
Then  Congress  howled  wildly  about  having  to  ap 
propriate  for  their  support  some  $400,000.  Under 
the  Bureau  of  Forestry  the  income  jumped  rapidly 
to  over  a  million  and  a  half.  Did  Congress  allow 
this  fund  to  remain  long  at  the  disposal  of  the  Ser 
vice  ?  Not  noticeably!  It  promptly  passed  a  bill 
turning  all  receipts  from  the  National  Forests  into 
the  General  Treasury.  Then  it  calmly  went  on 
appropriating  lesser  and  more  inadequate  amounts. 
All  along  the  line  the  Service  is  crippled  for  lack  of 
funds;  and  yet  it  is  turning  in  yearly  to  the  National 
Treasury  four  or  five  times  what  it  receives  as  an 
allowance.* 

So  when  a  Supervisor,  by  forethought,  hard  work, 
and  crafty  planning,  makes  a  good  showing  with 
twenty-five  men,  his  reward  is  not  opportunity  of 
extending  his  field  or  carrying  out  broader  ideas. 
He  is  told  that  as  he  can  do  so  much  with  twenty- 
five  men,  his  force  during  the  coming  year  will  be 
reduced  to  twenty.  Encouraging,  isn't  it  ?  Then 
he  gets  blue,  and  frames  his  resignation.  About 
that  time  some  one  rides  in  to  tell  him  that  some 
body's  running  a  donkey  engine  without  spark 
arresters,  or  that  Cook's  cattle  are  trespassing,  or 

*  Conditions  HI  this  respect  have  gradually  improved  since  the  above  was  written. 
There  is  IV*BI  for  plenty  now! 

H7 


THE  CABIN 

that  Smith  wants  a  contract  for  shake  timber.  In 
the  meantime,  lightning  has  started  a  fire  over  by 
Chiquito.  So  he  spreads  his  twenty  men  thin,  and 
tells  every  one  to  hustle,  and  forgets  that  resignation. 

This  particular  Forest  Supervisor  lives  three  miles 
from  us,  under  big  firs  and  sugar  pines,  and  before 
a  wide  meadow.  His  headquarters  have  grown 
from  small  beginnings.  Here  a  room  has  been 
added,  there  an  office.  Gradually  the  proud  living- 
room,  in  which  some  years  ago  we  used  to  sit  around 
a  roaring  fire,  has  been  overshadowed  until  now  it  is 
used  as  a  store-room.  A  wide  verandah  under  the 
roof,  or  a  three-sided  room  —  whichever  you  please 
-  is  edged  by  a  tiny  bubbling  stream.  From  it 
rises  a  stair  to  a  Juliet  balcony.  The  kitchen  is 
entirely  detached,  and  has  no  roof.  Although  thus 
the  mistress  is  likely  to  acquire  pollen  and  fir  needles 
in  her  coffee,  she  also  sweetens  labour  with  a  sight 
of  green  trees,  blue  sky  and  yellow  sunlight.  Be 
yond,  in  fragrant  azaleas,  is  a  tool-house;  across  a 
ravine  is  a  barn.  This  must  be  reached ;  so  a  substan 
tial  rustic  bridge  spans  the  gulf.  When  a  thing  has 
been  needed,  it  has  been  built.  The  great  solemn 
woods  are  full  of  surprises,  pleasant  ones  always. 

And  as  the  place  has  grown,  so  has  the  community, 
When  you  visit  the  Forest  Supervisor,  you  pitch  your 
tent  in  the  cedars,  tap  the  flume  of  water,  and  dis- 

148 


OUR  NEIGHBOURS 

pose  your  household  gods  to  suit  yourself.  One  has 
a  little  growing  cedar  tree  next  his  bunk.  On  this 
he  hangs  things,  and  thus  has  a  Christmas  tree  all 
the  summer  through.  As  more  people  come,  the 
boundaries  are  extended.  Already  outposts  have 
pushed  down  across  the  creek,  over  the  hill. 

All  sorts  of  people  are  to  be  met.  Rangers  are 
continually  riding  in  and  out  —  mountain  men, 
graduates  of  the  universities,  all  moulding  to  the 
same  type.  They  have  their  reports  to  make,  their 
instructions  to  get.  Inspectors  visit  for  weeks  at 
a  time,  men  from  Washington,  widely  travelled, 
cultivated,  intensely  in  earnest.  Technical  men 
pursue  their  varied  and  interesting  investigations, 
timber,  entomology,  grasses,  roots,  sociology — every 
thing  to  which  a  scientific  mind  gives  its  attention. 
They  come  with  their  assistants  and  their  outfits, 
and  stay  a  week  or  so  at  a  time.  One  learns  more 
from  a  college  professor  here  than  in  college.  If 
there  are  Rangers  enough  in,  there  is  a  big  bonfire 
some  evening,  and  the  scientist  talks.  And  always 
the  men  of  the  mountains  are  there  with  suggestion, 
complaint,  inquiry,  business  to  proffer.  They  hitch 
their  saddle  animals  to  a  tree;  the  pack  horses  stand 
patiently  with  down-drooping  heads.  Spurs  clank 
ing,  they  walk  gingerly  across  the  verandah  and 
into  the  office.  For  a  time  the  drawl  of  their  voices 

149 


THE  CABIN 

is  heard.  After  a  while  they  come  forth,  mount 
their  animals,  and  ride  away.  Cattle  trespass,  free 
use  of  timber,  timber  sales,  mining  claims,  water 
rights,  pasturage,  roads,  trails,  cordwood  —  any 
thing  and  everything  may  have  been  their  business. 
Lastly  are  the  tourists,  the  campers,  on  their  way 
through  to  the  big  country.  Most  of  them  are 
worth  meeting,  as  they  come  from  all  classes,  from 
all  corners  of  the  world  outside.  Sometimes  they 
are  amusing  or  even  irritating  in  their  ignorance. 
They  cannot  understand  why  they  should  not  put 
their  animals  in  the  meadow. 

"It's  public  property,"  they  argue:  and  then  go 
away  to  spread  the  gospel  of  bitterness.  This  is  now 
to  be  noted  in  regard  to  opposition,  little  or  big,  to 
the  Forest  Service  as  at  present  conducted;  it  springs 
invariably  from  selfish  interest,  whether  a  petty 
indignation  at  refusal  of  horse-feed  absolutely  neces 
sary  to  the  public  business,  or  the  concerted  efforts 
of  men  like  Fulton,  Clark,  Heyburn,  and  their  ilk 
in  the  Senate  to  serve  the  land-grabbing  interests. 

Over  all  these  varied  and  sometimes  incom 
patible  people  our  Supervisor  rules  easily  by  reason 
of  his  tact,  his  knowledge  of  human  nature,  the  ab 
solute  unselfishness  of  his  purposes,  and  his  deep 
personal  humility.  He  is  my  friend,  and  it  is  un 
gracious  to  appraise  a  friend:  but  I  hope  this  slight 

150 


OUR  NEIGHBOURS 

tribute  to  a  disinterested  public  official  may  not  be 
amiss. 

Like  most  strong,  efficient,  and  enthusiastic  men, 
our  Supervisor  retains  a  great  deal  of  the  small  boy 
in  his  composition.  Thus  in  case  of  a  celebration 
his  mind  naturally  reacts  in  the  direction  of  bon 
fires.  If  the  forester  is  due  for  a  visit,  or  the  Tech 
nical  Assistant  is  presented  with  a  baby,  or  the  land- 
grabbers  lose  a  fight  in  the  Senate,  or  old  Jones 
finally  comes  to  time  in  regard  to  the  trespass  matter, 
or  it's  Fourth  of  July,  or  one  of  the  Rangers'  kids  has 
a  birthday,  or  somebody  feels  especially  happy  or 
anything  —  why,  everybody  must  come  to  the  bon 
fire! 

They  are  real  bonfires;  none  of  your  little  hap 
hazard  piles  of  brush  and  sticks!  First  a  tall  post 
is  planted.  Around  it,  wigwam  fashion,  are  stacked 
split  poles  of  pitch  pine.  Outside  them,  ends  up, 
are  other  poles,  logs,  and  miscellaneous  fuel  as  much 
as  can  be  placed.  When  the  affair  is  fired,  the 
flames  leap  straight  up  fifty  feet.  At  a  distance,  a 
most  respectful  distance,  we  sit,  some  on  benches, 
most  on  logs  or  on  the  ground.  For  a  time  the 
fascination  of  that  roaring,  waving  pillar  of  flame 
is  sufficient.  The  sparks  flying  upward  in  the  good 
old  scriptural  way,  the  leaping  heat  waves,  the 
tongues  of  flame  reaching  like  licking  tongues 


THE  CABIN 

through  the  hot  gases  of  the  fire,  the  shadows  danc 
ing  in  and  out  of  the  circle  of  illumination  like  mis 
chievous  boys,  the  half-revealments  of  the  gigantic 
trees  out  in  the  darkness,  all  hold  the  gathering  con 
templative  and  silent.  But  after  a  time  conversation 
begins.  Simple  refreshments  pass,  pipes  and  cigar 
ettes  glow.  Then  the  Supervisor  likes  to  read  aloud. 
He  holds  the  real  attention  of  every  member  of  the 
miscellaneous  crowd.  After  every  sentence  or  so, 
he  interpolates  comment  of  his  own.  Whatever  is 
foreign  to  the  Sierras,  he  interprets  in  terms  of  these 
mountains.  It  is  a  treat  to  hear  him  read  "The 
Ballad  of  East  and  West"  to  the  Rangers.  Each 
phrase  has  its  running  comment. 

-  and  a  raw  red  roan  was  he  '  —  that's  like 
that  old  horse  of  yours,  Jim;  he  wasn't  much  for 
looks,  but  that  colour  is  tough.  Kipling  knew  what 
he  was  about  when  he  selected  that  type." 

Or  a  little  later! 

"'  —  the  snick  of  the  breech  block,9  more  like  our 
army  rifles,  you  see.  Bolt  action.  I  don't  think 
much  of  that  for  ambush  work.  Winchesters 
wouldn't  make  such  a  racket." 

So  it  went.  The  trail,  the  weapons,  the  animals, 
the  men  —  all  were  plucked  from  the  half-mythical, 
wholly  unreal  East  and  translated  into  things  these 
men  handled  every  day  of  their  lives.  The  drama 


OUR  NEIGHBOURS 

of  the  poem  was  no  longer  merely  academic;  it 
became  alive.  He  snapped  shut  the  book. 

"How  about  it,  John  ?"  he  demanded.  "Do  you 
believe  it?  Would  you  have  done  it  that  way,  or 
would  you  have  fetched  him  a  clip  side  o'  the  ear 
for  being  foolish  ? " 

Dazzled  by  the  light  of  the  now  sullen  coals  we 
stumbled  through  the  velvet  dark  to  our  waiting 
horses.  The  animals  snorted  softly.  We  rode 
home  through  the  dim  forest,  unfamiliar  with  the 
night.  The  horses  knew  the  way.  Only  overhead 
were  the  glorious  heavens,  crackling  with  the  bril 
liant  stars  of  the  high  altitudes. 


153 


THE  GUEST  CAMF 


XIV 
THE  GUEST  CAMP 

IT  IS  a  very  simple  matter  to  have  guests  at  the 
Cabin.  We  all  sleep  out  under  the  trees; 
and  there  are  plenty  of  trees.  Up  to  the  number 
of  two  or  three  we  feed  our  visitors  —  and  make 
them  help  wash  the  dishes.  If  more  come,  we 
pass  them  our  camp  cook  outfit;  show  them  the 
lower  spring;  and  leave  them  to  their  own  devices. 
Of  regular,  invited  guests,  asked  from  home  and 
met  at  the  stage  terminal,  we  have  had  very  few. 
It  is  a  little  difficult  to  guess  how  people  will  take 
doing  their  own  laundry  and  going  without  sheets. 
A  few  choice  spirits  have  made  the  four-day  struggle 
to  get  here,  and  have  professed  themselves  pleased. 
One  was  an  artist.  He  constructed  a  terrace,  three 
turnstiles,  a  section  of  rail  fence,  helped  build  the 
barn  and  put  together  a  fine  wash-bench.  The 
nearest  approach  to  his  profession  was  the  accom 
plishment  of  four  stained-glass  panes  for  one  of  our 
windows.  He  pasted  heavy  bond  paper  over  the 
glass,  and  then  with  watercolours  evolved  the  most 


THE  CABIN 

fantastic  and  ridiculous  heraldic  devices  for  each  of 
the  four  of  us.  The  effect  was  quite  perfect,  for  he 
even  imitated  the  uneven  tinting  caused  in  the 
genuine  article  by  the  varying  thickness  of  the  glass. 
Beyond  that  he  did  not  lay  brush  to  canvas.  This 
artist,  a  girl  friend  of  Billy's,  my  father  and  brother 
are  so  far  the  only  "brought-in"  guests. 

But  of  others  there  have  been  many.  Every  once 
in  a  while  we  run  across  people  prowling  about  the 
Sierras,  out  for  a  summer  vacation,  because  they 
like  it.  That  very  fact  goes  far  toward  making 
them  eligible  for  the  Guest  Camp.  If  we  like  them, 
we  ask  them  up  for  a  week  or  two.  Thus  we  have 
gained  new  and  valuable  friends  without  the  usual, 
sometimes  fruitless  labour  of  searching  through 
multitudes  of  acquaintances  for  them.  The  love 
of  the  mountains  does  the  sifting  for  us.  From  all 
parts  of  the  country  they  come,  east  and  west  - 
young  girls  and  their  brothers,  college  professors 
and  their  wives,  boys  just  out  of  school,  travellers, 
just  plain  people.  They  are  varied  enough  in  occu 
pation,  in  training,  in  age,  in  social  condition,  but 
they  all  pass  fearlessly  by  Theophilus's  challenging 
sign.  Did  I  tell  you  of  that  ?  It  faces  the  Trail, 
so  that  all  who  run  thereon  must  read.  It  says: 
"Do  you  speak  the  Language  of  our  Tribe?" 
And  sometimes  our  friends  among  the  mountain 

158 


THE  GUEST  CAMP 

people  come  for  a  few  days,  bringing  their  beds, 
their  grub,  their  horse-feed  with  them.  Aunt  Belle, 
the  sawyer's  wife,  is  with  us  two  or  three  times  a 
season.  The  boys  accompany  her,  and  two  or  three 
others  whom  her  kind  heart  has  lifted  from  the  heat 
of  the  midsummer  for  a  breath  of  mountain  air. 
They  have  camp-fires,  and  explorations,  and  great 
times.  Occasionally  funny  things  happen.  One 
party  of  them  went  for  a  ride,  got  lost,  hunted  for 
a  way  out,  fell  into  the  dusk  of  evening,  finally  de 
cided  they  must  stay  out  over  night.  They  tied 
their  horses  to  trees,  scraped  together  beds  of  yellow 
pine  needles.  Finally  one  of  them  descended  to 
a  creek  to  get  a  drink.  Somehow  a  log  seemed 
familiar,  though  he  could  not  tell  why.  After  a 
moment  his  eye  caught  sight  of  something  white. 
It  was  a  towel.  The  party  were  within  fifty  feet 
of  our  swimming-pool! 

Again,  it  began  to  rain  just  as  a  party  of  nine  hove 
in  sight.  We  took  them  in.  For  three  days  the 
storm  raged.  We  all  lived  in  that  little  two-roomed 
cabin,  sleeping  at  night  on  the  floor,  roosting  any 
old  way  in  the  daytime,  rustling  firewood,  cooking 
in  the  fireplace  while  the  gray  rent  veils  of  mist 
swept  through  the  trees  and  across  the  meadow. 
We  had  the  best  kind  of  a  time. 

At  first  visitors  suited  themselves  as  to  location 

'59 


THE  CABIN 

Now  a  fairly  definite  Guest  Camp  has  been  estab 
lished  by  a  sort  of  evolutionary  process.  It  is  near 
the  lower  end  of  the  meadow,  quite  hidden  from  the 
Cabin,  on  a  dry  slope  among  smaller  trees.  A  con 
siderable  space  has  been  fenced  in  with  fir  poles. 
Places  for  balsam  beds  are  levelled.  A  framework 
needs  only  a  saddle-blanket  or  so  tacked  up  to  make 
a  private  dressing-room.  It  has  shelves  and  a 
bench,  and  a  place  for  a  tiny  fire  directly  in  front. 
The  lower  spring  is  near  by.  Altogether  it  is  very 
attractive  and  convenient.  The  Artist  fitted  it  with 
swinging  gates  and  dressing-tables  and  the  like. 
If  we  could  persuade  the  Artist  to  come  back  one  of 
these  times,  we  should  soon  possess  all  the  comforts 
of  home.  And  this  thought  occurs:  if  thus  an  artist 
conducts  himself  under  influence  of  the  great  forest, 
what  should  we  expect  from,  say,  a  plumber  ?  Would 
his  surplus  energy  manifest  itself  in  improving  our 
water  supply  ?  More  likely  he  would  write  verse. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  sifting  effect  of  the  mountains. 
This  is  strikingly  corroborated  by  the  fact  that  in 
our  five  years  we  have  had  but  two  really  unwelcome 
visitors.  The  first  was  a  woman,  harmless,  well- 
meaning,  angular,  vain,  elderly,  and  most  abomin 
ably  talkative.  She  came  from  the  Valley  and 
spent  the  summer  within  striking  distance.  Like  a 
rattlesnake,  she  struck  suddenly,  but,  unlike  a  ratde- 

160 


THE  GUEST  CAMP 

snake,  without  warning.  We  found  her  one  after 
noon  comfortably  seated  on  the  verandah.  When 
we  came  in  sight,  she  began  to  talk.  Her  conversa 
tion  assayed  one  low-grade  idea  to  the  thousand 
words,  and  she  had  five  or  six  hundred  ideas  which 
she  wished  to  elucidate  before  sundown.  She  was 
near  fifty,  but  was  still  kittenishly  in  the  running. 
One  o'clock  was  the  hour  of  her  arrival,  and  near 
sundown  the  time  of  her  reluctant  departure.  Next 
time  she  hove  in  sight  Billy  saw  her  first  and  dropped 
behind  the  brush  like  a  quail.  I  managed  to  sneak 
out  of  the  bedroom  window  and  up  the  hill  to  the 
fir  thicket  where  hangs  the  hammock.  Only  the 
Artist  was  left,  working  innocently  away  at  his  ter 
race.  From  time  to  time  I  heard  his  plaintive  calls, 
and  his  loudly  spoken  wonder  as  to  where  we  could 
have  gone,  and  his  confident  assurances  that  we 
would  soon  be  back.  In  four  hours  he  did  this  three 
times;  which,  after  all,  was  meagre  punctuation  to 
the  high-pitched,  nasal  voice.  Finally  she  left. 
It  still  lacked  an  hour  to  sundown.  I  do  not  know 
what  the  Artist  did  or  said  to  her,  but  she  never 
called  on  us  again.  He  was  very  dignified,  and 
received  our  hypocrisy  with  scorn.  When  we  had 
quite  finished,  he  told  Billy  he  did  not  consider  it 
dignified  for  her  to  crawl  on  her  hands  and  knees 
behind  bushes. 

161 


THE  CABIN 

The  other  unwelcome  visitor  was  a  sheepman. 
The  grazing  through  the  forest  roundabout  is  leased 
to  a  limited  number  of  sheep.  Ordinarily  we  do  not 
know  of  their  existence,  for  they  feed  in  two  small 
bands  which  are  lost  among  the  numberless  ravines 
and  defiles  of  the  mountains. 

But  one  day  or  another  we  catch  sight  of  a  vulture 
sailing  high  up  in  the  blue.  By  that  we  know  the 
flocks  are  approaching,  for  only  with  the  bleating 
multitudes  are  these  cynical  keen-eyed  scavengers 
ever  to  be  observed  in  our  clean  Sierras.  Then 
across  the  undercurrents  of  sound,  far  away,  we 
catch  a  faint  mellow  murmuring.  Hardly  can  it 
be  identified  as  having  a  definite  objective  existence. 
Rather  is  it  like  those  undervoices  one  hears  amid 
the  roar  and  dashing  of  a  rapid.  Then  a  faint  dust 
is  discernible  as  a  shade  of  gray  against  the  atmos 
pheric  blue  of  distance.  A  single  blat  is  carried  down 
wind :  a  single  deep  clang  from  one  of  the  huge  musi 
cal  bells  affected  by  the  mountain  sheepmen.  We 
hear  an  elfin  barking,  then  a  nearer  single  crash. 
Finally  the  murmurous  many-voiced  multitude  is 
opposite  us,  on  the  other  hill.  We  can  distinguish, 
above  the  steady  monotone  of  the  sheep,  various  calls, 
the  enthusiasm  of  dogs,  an  occasional  shot.  The 
voice  of  the  flock  grows  to  a  crescendo,  passes, 
dies  slowly  away.  The  gray  dust-haze  settles. 

162 


THE  GUEST  CAMP 

Again  we  hear  our  Hermit  Thrushes  and  our 
streams. 

The  owner  of  the  sheep  at  the  time  of  which  I 
speak  was  an  old-timer  of  the  autocratic  and  patri 
archal  type.  Generous,  good-natured,  big  of  frame 
and  jolly  of  demeanour,  he  was  the  soul  of  good- 
fellowship  —  as  long  as  his  will  was  not  crossed  nor 
his  purpose  opposed.  But  through  all  his  life  he 
had  absolutely  ruled  his  little  community.  His 
women  obeyed  him;  his  sons  he  ruled  even  into 
middle  age;  and  his  neighbours  he  succeeded 
in  overawing  by  a  certain  abundant  vitality  and 
fierceness  of  rage.  Add  to  this  the  fact  that  he  had 
come  early  to  the  mountains  before  rules  and  regu 
lations  were  dreamed  of  and  that  he  had  fought,  and 
fought  successfully,  through  a  great  many  cattle 
wars  and  over  a  great  many  trespasses. 

He  had  sent  up  a  relative  of  his,  also  an  old-timer, 
to  oversee  his  sheep  herders.  By  the  way,  there 
are  no  shepherds  in  the  West  —  the  term  is  too  scrip 
tural  and  dignified  in  its  connotations  to  apply  to 
these  men.  They  are  always  sheep  herders.  This 
second  old-timer  was  a  fat  man,  brimful  of  steaming 
energy.  He  would  waddle  and  puff  and  stew 
breathlessly  up  the  steepest  slopes  —  but  he  arrived. 
He  had  a  choleric  blue  eye  and  a  hearty  disposition. 
Common  report  said  he  had  been  considered  an 

163 


THE  CABIN 

undesirable  by  the  Canadian  Mounted  Police. 
Certainly  the  directest  way  to  an  explosion  was  by 
mention  of  that  body.  His  ideas  were  those  of  the 
old-fashioned  sheepman :  get  feed;  it  doesn't  matter 
how  or  where,  but  get  it.  This  class  has  made  plenty 
of  trouble,  both  for  itself  and  for  the  government 
officials. 

Naturally  our  little  hundred  acres  were  excluded 
from  grazing.  Nevertheless,  it  proved  to  be  a 
constant  struggle  to  keep  the  sheep  off.  The  herders 
were  Basques  and  possessed  of  a  conveniently  erratic 
knowledge  of  English.  I  showed  the  old-timer  the 
blazed  lines.  When  the  sheep  grazed  over  the 
boundaries,  however,  he  was  conveniently  absent. 
On  his  return  he  was  volubly  sorry:  it  was  a  mistake 
by  those  stupid  Basques  —  but  the  sheep  had  the 
feed.  We  went  away  for  two  weeks,  but  returned 
at  the  end  of  ten  days.  The  sheep  were  feeding  in 
our  front  dooryard,  and  the  herders  were  lying 
stretched  out  by  our  cabin  gate.  I  rode  up  and 
ordered  them  off.  Two  of  the  Basques  failed  to 
understand  even  vigorous  sign  language.  The  third 
looked  me  up  and  down. 

"I  t'ink  they  more  of  us  as  you,"  said  he.  "We 
go  bimeby." 

He  had  failed  to  take  in  all  my  equipment.  I 
thrust  the  holster  of  my  Colt's  to  the  front. 

164 


THE  GUEST  CAMP 

"All  right!     I  go!     I  go!     I  go!"  he  cried  hastily. 

They  went.  After  an  interval  of  some  weeks  I 
spread  the  news  that  I  was  going  away  again.  I 
did  not.  Two  days  later,  just  after  daylight,  the 
flocks  poured  over  our  ridge.  That  time  I  "threw 
a  scare"  into  the  Basques  that  lasted  out  the 
season.  Also  I  wrote  to  the  sheep-owner  informing 
him  of  the  facts,  and  requesting  him  to  issue  definite 
instructions  to  his  men. 

Then  came  the  delicious  part  of  the  whole  episode. 
This  sheep-owner,  unsuspected,  must  have  con 
sumed  vast  quantities  of  Deadwood  Dick,  the 
Duchess,  Ouida,  and  Fourth-of-July  orations.  I 
received  eventually  an  epistle  from  him  which  was 
worth  all  the  bother.  The  man  is  probably 
fifty-five  years  old,  well  off,  of  a  good  education, 
and  with  wide  experience.  Yet  his  letter  was  that 
of  a  boy  of  twelve.  Oh,  it  was  well  enough  spelled 
and  written!  But  the  sentiment.  He  spoke  of 
"rich  men's  playgrounds"  —  Billy  and  I  chortled 
with  delight  over  that  —  and  "never  will  I  bend 
the  knee  to  arrogant  wealth";  and  "no  minion  of 
plutocrats"  and  the  like,  until  Billy  and  I  had  to 
look  again  at  our  bank-book  to  see  if  the  iridescent 
dream  might  not  be  true.  He  ended  with  a  patriotic 
burst  about  American  citizenship.  If  his  sense  of 
satisfaction  over  this  effort  half  equalled  our  joy 

165 


THE  CABIN 

over  its  grandiloquence,  his  ruffled  spirit  must  have 
been  soothed. 

All  this  looked  mildly  like  war.  But  some  of  his 
men  managed  to  set  fire  to  the  woods  near  one  of 
their  camps.  Fortunately,  Billy  and  I  happened 
to  pass  that  way.  We  corralled  the  fire  while  it 
was  yet  small.  The  whole  affair  did  not  impress 
the  Company  favourably.  The  sheep-owner's  lease 
was  not  renewed.  A  Frenchman  took  his  place; 
and  all  has  since  gone  well. 


166 


THE  RIDGE 


XV 

THE  RIDGE 

OPPOSING  desires  tug  gently  at  us  all  the 
time.  The  fascination  of  the  Cabin,  the 
delight  in  labour,  the  wish  to  get  things  accom 
plished  tend  to  keep  us  at  home:  the  delights  of 
exploration  call  us  abroad.  We  cannot  well  do  both. 
It  is  remarkable  how  quickly  human  nature 
makes  for  itself  an  environment  in  which  to  try  its 
powers  and  spin  out  its  petty  destinies.  There  is 
no  real  reason  why  we  should  finish  our  meadow 
ditches,  our  rail  fences,  our  trails,  our  graded  road 
now  —  or  ever,  for  that  matter.  We  are  very  com 
fortable  here;  we  lack  nothing  essential.  Yet  each 
day  we  rise  to  a  joyous  anticipation  of  new  accom 
plishment.  When  it  is  suggested  that  we  go  fishing, 
or  explore  the  mountain  toward  the  old  Sage  Mill, 
or  take  ten  days  for  an  excursion  into  the  big  country 
-we  "haven't  time!"  I  wonder  if  that  excuse 
seems  as  real,  and  is  as  foolish,  to  the  thousands  of 
others  all  over  the  world  who  are  making  it  believ- 
ingly  and  perhaps  a  little  wistfully. 

169 


THE  CABIN 

Now  we  are  possessed  of  two  good  legs  apiece; 
a  saddle  horse  each;  and  a  pack  mule  between  us. 
With  these  advantages  over  our  friends  the  sugar- 
pines  we  can  accomplish  much.  We  can  ramble 
out  on  tours  of  discovery.  The  objects  of  these 
discoveries  may  be  new  pools  in  the  creek,  new 
birds'  nests  under  the  ferns,  new  knowledge  of  the 
intimate  twists  and  turns,  the  glens  and  glades  and 
hollows,  the  peaks  and  vistas  of  our  own  pine-clad 
range;  — or  they  may  be,  as  once  this  summer,  the 
finding,  away  back  among  the  chaos  of  the  snow 
peaks,  in  the  awful  gorge  of  a  box  canon  thousands 
of  feet  deep,  some  wide  pine  flat  with  a  brook  bub 
bling  through,  and  a  natural  pasture  in  a  pocket  of 
the  ledges,  and  pools  across  which  no  angler's  fly 
had  ever  fallen,  and  from  which  the  big  trout  leaped 
in  countless  numbers.  From  here  to  the  top  of  our 
knoll  is  a  half-mile  swarming  with  interesting  doodle 
bugs,  birds,  and  plants:  the  Sierras  are  eighty  miles 
or  so  wide,  five  hundred  long,  and,  except  on  the 
edges,  uninhabited,  wild,  tremendous.  In  these  two 
facts  rest  all  the  possibilities. 

Of  course  we  know  our  own  range  intimately  - 
all    its    water-courses,    plateaus,    ravines,    canons, 
peaks5  and  hidden  meadows.     It  is  about  seven  or 
eight  miles  long  —  before  it  merges  into  Shuteye  - 
and  probably  two  broad.     The  forest  is  magnificent 

170 


THE  RIDGE 

and  almost  unbroken.  Whiskey  Creek  runs  nearly 
its  length,  on  a  wide  sloping  shelf  below  the  highest 
ridge.  From  it  are  tributaries,  short,  tortuous, 
rapid.  From  this  fact,  and  the  impossibility  of 
gaining  a  bird's-eye  view  over  the  forest  growth, 
it  is  exceedingly  difficult  at  first  to  get  the  lay  of  the 
country.  Under  the  trees  a  ridge-top  will  coax 
you  insensibly  farther  and  farther  around  to  the 
south  or  west  until  at  last  you  emerge  at  a  most 
unexpected  point.  A  man  considerably  practised 
in  mental  visualization  of  topographical  features 
will  soon  get  the  logic  of  it  all.  One  not  so  accus 
tomed,  however,  would  wander  far  out  of  his  way. 
He  would  never  get  lost,  in  the  sense  that  somebody 
would  have  to  undertake  his  recovery;  but  he  would 
be  considerably  —  well,  delayed. 

There  are  about  a  dozen  major  meadows  on  the 
Ridge,  all  exceedingly  beautiful  save  the  one  where 
the  little  mill  stands.  Besides  these,  are  innumer 
able  "stringers"  and  tiny  pockets  of  rich  feed  where 
the  range  cattle  and  the  deer  can  stand  knee-deep 
in  bliss.  There  are  bold  granite  ridges,  and  un 
broken  rock  sheets  covering  many  acres,  and  little 
stunted  trees  growing  low  and  twisted.  There  are 
wide  hillsides  warm  in  the  sun,  covered  with  snow 
brush  and  manzanita  and  chinquapin.  There  are 
thickets  of  young  pines  and  the  depths  of  willows. 


THE  CABIN 

There  are  broad  forests  and  shady  dells;  waterfalls, 
rapids,  deep  still  pools,  glades  where  the  fairies 
must  dance  every  moonlight  night.  All  the  wonder 
and  variety  of  the  woodland  and  the  peaks  are  here. 
And  every  once  in  a  while  you  come  upon  a  sheltered, 
shaded,  intimate  nook,  screened  with  dogwood, 
carpeted  with  moss,  flecked  with  sunlight,  musical  with 
birds,  watered  by  a  tiny  thread  of  a  streamlet,  mur 
murous  with  buzzing  insects,  where  you  can  forget,  if 
that  pleases  you,  all  the  grandeurs  and  the  solitudes. 
Of  course  we  learned  all  these  things  gradually. 
No  single  and  determined  exploration  could  do 
more  than  establish  the  shortest  routes  between 
various  points.  That  is  something.  When  we 
first  came  to  the  Ridge,  and  before  we  had  any  notion 
of  settling  down  here,  we  rode  idly,  for  the  moment's 
pleasure,  without  much  attention  at  direction,  until 
it  was  time  to  return  to  camp.  On  one  such  excur 
sion  we  emerged  from  the  woods  into  a  gem  of  a 
round  meadow  encompassed  by  a  rim  fifty  feet  or 
so  high.  We  rode  up  over  the  rim  and  home  again. 
That  meadow  was  then  only  one  of  the  hundreds 
we  had  seen  in  these  mountains,  and  speedily  it 
blurred  to  a  memory  of  a  beautiful  thing  detached 
from  all  practical  details  of  location.  Later,  after 
we  had  built  the  Cabin  and  settled  down,  the  picture 
of  that  green  cup  returned  to  us.  In  our  rides  and 

in 


THE  RIDGE 

walks  we  constantly  expected  once  more  to  emerge 
on  the  steep  perfect  semicircle  of  the  rim,  to  look 
down  again  on  the  peaceful,  still  emerald  sward. 
Our  expectations  were  vain.  One  after  the  other 
we  canvassed  the  meadow  possibilities,  so  to  speak. 
For  the  formation  of  these  mountain  meadows  de 
pends  on  certain  well-defined  conditions.  Knowing 
those  conditions  you  know  where  to  look  for  a 
meadow.  We  found  many,  but  never  the  one. 
Gradually  the  idea  of  it  fell  into  the  background. 
We  remembered  it  as  one  remembers  the  features 
of  a  dream,  or  of  some  natural  object  seen  in 
earliest  childhood,  when  such  matters  are  isolated, 
before  they  have  fallen  into  an  orderly  sequence 
of  memory.  The  picture  was  distinct  but  utterly 
detached.  And  so  after  a  time  it  lost  its  physical 
reality.  The  Lost  Meadow  was  something  to  be 
dreamed  about  —  and  doubted. 

Then  one  day  when  I  was  thinking  about  some 
thing  else  —  in  fact  I  was  most  busily  searching  for 
a  section  corner  placed  nearly  thirty-five  years  ago  — 
I  rounded  a  corner  of  a  knoll  — and  there  lay  Los! 
Meadow,  peaceful  in  the  sunshine.  One  could  have 
ridden  within  a  hundred  feet  of  it  without  seeing  it. 
Perhaps  we  had  done  so.  It  was  as  beautiful  as  I 
remembered  it;  and  yet  I  confess  to  being  deeply 
chagrined.  What  is  a  real  meadow  compared  to 

173 


THE  CABIN 

the  dream  of  one  inaccessible  ?  Who  would  barter 
the  last  touch  of  mystery  for  a  lost  reality  ?  What 
do  you  suppose  the  Round  Table  would  have  done 
with  the  Grail  if  it  had  gained  it  ? 

On  that  point  Billy  and  I  once  had  something 
of  an  argument.  I  always  maintain  that  in  a 
landscape  there  should  be  left  one  unexplored 
vista,  preferably  over  a  hill.  I  want  one  direc 
tion  preserved  for  imagination.  If  you  know 
what  is  over  all  the  hills,  then  where  are  you 
going  to  pasture  the  flocks  of  your  fancy  ?  In 
any  well-ordered  imagination  are  glades,  forests, 
meadows,  and  flowers,  birds  and  solemn  trees,  which 
are  the  enchanted  land.  Some  people  build  castles 
there.  Personally  I  do  not  care  for  castles.  They 
are  more  fitted  to  Spanish  landscapes;  and  then,  too, 
they  generally  hurt  like  the  mischief  when  they 
come  tumbling  about  your  ears.  The  enchanted 
land  may  be  located  almost  anywhere  —  tobacco 
smoke,  wood  coals,  white  clouds  will  do  —  but  there 
is  a  substantial  advantage  in  locating  it  somewhere 
handy,  like  over  a  hill.  Even  the  best  imagination 
finds  difficulty  in  transporting  its  owner  vividly 
enough  to  a  cloud  or  into  a  wood  fire.  But  any  of 
us  can  wander  in  fancy  up  through  the  trees,  over 
the  always  fascinating  skyline,  and  plump  into  the 
enchanted  land. 


THE  RIDGE 

If,  however,  you  happen  to  have  been  in  frofria 
persona  over  that  hill  you  know  the  country  is  al 
ready  occupied  by  various  more  or  less  interesting 
things.  Two  bodies  cannot  occupy  the  same  space 
at  the  same  time.  Your  enchanted  land  is  crowded 
out.  Therefore  I  repeat,  firmly,  in  every  landscape 
should  be  preserved  one  vista  which  you  do  not 
explore. 

At  the  Cabin  I  picked  out  such  a  vista.  Therf 
are  two  admirably  adapted  to  the  purpose,  and  I 
hesitated  for  some  time. 

Directly  down  in  front  of  the  Cabin  stretches  thi 
meadow  terminated  by  aspens  and  by  the  green  pin* 
forest.  During  the  daytime  that  forest  looks  un 
broken;  but  when  twilight  falls,  the  planes  differen 
tiate  themselves.  Greens  near  at  hand  are  dark, 
those  farther  away  retain  still  a  faint  illumination. 
Thus  we  can  see  down  through  an  unsuspected  forest 
aisle  to  a  distant  and  fairy  hillside.  When  the  sun 
has  set,  this  becomes  a  light  olive-gray  in  delicate 
contrast  to  the  dark  olive-greens  nearer  at  hand. 
The  effect  is  quite  magical  and  charming  —  a  whole 
mountain-side  evoked  by  the  evening. 

And,  again  in  view  from  the  front  verandah  of 
the  Cabin,  but  to  the  left,  rises  a  long  gentle  slope 
set  with  the  wonderful  straight  columns  of  sugar- 
pines.  By  chance  they  grow  here  in  such  a  manner 


THE  CABIN 

as  to  leave  an  unobstructed  aisle  leading  straight 
up  the  hill.  The  effect  of  dwindling  distance  is 
helped  by  the  accident  of  a  false  perspective  —  the 
rows  of  trees  grow  into  a  slight  convergence.  At 
the  very  top  of  the  hill  a  low  and  delicate  screen  of 
brush  has  been  thrown  across  to  close  the  vista, 
like  the  screen  of  a  theatre  around  which  dancers 
are  to  appear.  The  aisle  invited  one  to  the  spacious 
strolls  of  kings.  Around  the  screen  of  brush  lay 
the  magic  country. 

I  decided  finally  on  this  latter.  The  other  re 
quired  wings  wherewith  to  fly  to  the  fragile  distant 
hillside.  Here  I  could  wander  idly,  each  step  ap 
parent  through  the  smoke  of  my  after-dinner  pipe, 
up  between  the  columns  of  the  portico  to  the  green 
screen  —  and  there  I  was,  at  home  with  all  the  rag 
tags  and  bobtails  of  many  desired  lands  and  places! 

This  lasted  a  month.  Then  the  expected  hap 
pened. 

"Let's  explore  up  over  the  hill  to-morrow,"  Billy 
suggested. 

I  explained  carefully  why  not.  It  was  evening, 
and  the  half-light  threw  mystery  down  through  the 
long  straight  aisle.  Only,  by  some  freak  of  open 
ing,  the  brush  screen  at  the  end  caught  a  last  shaft 
of  light.  It  stood  out  faint  green  in  a  species  of 
translucence.  As  though  to  emphasize  my  remarks, 

176 


THE  RIDGE 

at  this  moment  a  deer  stepped  out  from  the  shadow, 
stood  for  a  moment  before  the  screen  as  though  ap 
pearing  on  a  stage,  and  faded  away  into  the  shadow 
again. 

"Oh!"  cried  Billy  softly. 

"You  see!"  said  I. 

But  Billy  could  not  see  that  deer  at  all  as  a  guar 
dian  spirit  of  the  enchanted  land.  Her  argument 
was  that  not  even  an  enchanted  land  could  be  as 
wonderful  as  the  realities  of  these,  our  Sierras:  that 
enchanted  lands  could  be  easily  moved  to  localities 
not  otherwise  desirable,  and  that  therefore  it  was  a 
.ihame  to  deprive  ourselves  of  any  possibilities.  It 
ended  by  our  walking  up  through  the  aisles  of  the 
trees.  Of  course! 

Over  the  brow  of  the  hill  lay  a  little  oval  of  a 
meadow  approached  by  solemn  and  austere  ranks 
of  trees.  The  sun  shone  cheerfully  on  the  grass: 
the  deep  shadows  were  in  the  woods.  Owing  to 
various  willows  and  the  like  one  could  not  see  into 
the  meadow  until  directly  opposite. 

"This,"  said  Billy  decisively,  "is  a  Glade.  I've 
read  of  them,  but  I  never  saw  one  before." 

We  went  on.  A  little  farther  was  a  rounded 
amphitheatre  of  a  smooth,  unbroken,  concave, 
semicircular  hill.  It  would  have  seated  twenty 
thousand  people,  or  the  entire  population  of  the 

177 


THE  CABIN 

fairies.  In  the  centre  of  it  a  dozen  big  sugar-pines 
were  giving  a  masque.  They  stopped  as  we  came 
along,  and  waited  aloofly  until  we  had  gone  by. 
The  audience  of  big  trees  and  little  trees  also  sus 
pended  their  attention.  We  hurried  on  feeling  rather 
guilty  at  having  interrupted. 

Over  the  rim  of  the  amphitheatre  we  came  on  two 
old  gentlemen  with  their  heads  together.  They 
were  evidently  myrmidons,  for  only  their  heads 
were  above  the  soil.  The  heroes  were  gigantic 
in  the  old  days:  the  round  helmet  tops  of  the  old 
gentlemen  were  quite  ten  feet  above  the  ground. 
They  held  very  still  as  we  went  by;  and  when  we 
looked  back  they  resembled  two  huge  round  boulders, 
close  together,  all  alone  in  the  brown  soil  of  the 
forest. 

A  little  farther  we  found  a  cave  in  the  base  of  a 
huge  sugar-pine.  The  entrance  was  low,  but  once 
inside  there  was  room  for  us  both,  and  for  the  dogs. 
Its  bed  was  dry  and  soft.  It  ran  up  into  dimness, 
like  a  chimney.  We  waited  some  time  for  the  dryad 
to  return;  but  as  she  did  not,  we  finally  had  to  leave 
without  seeing  her. 

In  all  directions  were  pogsnoggle  holes.  What 
are  pogsnoggles,  and  of  what  appearance  are  their 
holes  ?  If  ever  you  find  a  hole  that  looks  as  though 
it  had  been  made  by  thrusting  a  round  cane  straight 

178 


THE  RIDGE 

into  soft  earth;  or  if  ever,  under  an  uprooted  tree- 
root  you  come  upon  a  huge,  jagged,  crooked  open 
ing:  and  if,  moreover,  there  are  no  tracks  about  these 
holes  —  then  be  sure  you  have  come  upon  the  abode 
of  the  wily  pogsnoggle,  male  and  female.  For  the 
sexes  live  in  different  kinds  of  holes,  and  make  no 
tracks.  I  have  never  seen  a  pogsnoggle,  but  I 
always  look  hopefully  upon  their  holes. 

And  then,  after  a  time,  we  came  upon  a  meadow, 
one  of  the  prettiest  of  all,  large,  willow-grown,  with 
a  stream,  big  trees,  hills,  with  green  grass  and 
flowers  and  birds.  That  is  as  far  as  we  had  time 
for  that  day. 

"There,"  said  Billy,  as  we  turned  homeward, 
"can  your  enchanted  land  beat  that?" 

I  am  not  sure.  At  any  rate  my  last  unexplored 
vista  is  gone.  For  rent  cheap,  one  unlocated  home 
less  and  friendless  enchanted  land. 


179 


THE  BIG  COUNTRY 


XVI 

THE  BIG  COUNTRY 

SOONER  or  later  we  get  restless.  Then  one 
morning  we  throw  "the  diamond"  over  the 
modest  pack  that  suffices  us,  and  are  off  for 
the  Big  Country.  Sometimes  we  carry  grub  for  a 
month,  and  are  back  again  inside  the  week: 
again  we  go  for  a  week  and  are  absent  several. 
It  all  depends. 

The  Big  Country  is  very  big  indeed.  Three  hours 
from  our  Cabin  we  top  Shuteye  Pass  and  can  look 
abroad  over  a  few  hundred  square  miles  of  it.  From 
Mt.  Lyell  on  the  north,  down  the  sweep  of  the  Mina 
rets,  past  the  Mono  Creek  divide  to  Goddard,  lying 
dim  at  the  south,  the  ordered  procession  of  splintered 
granite  giants  capped  with  eternal  snow  files  by  us 
across  the  distance.  They  are  blue  and  airy,  and 
between  us  and  them  lie  deep  canons,  wide  forests, 
lower  ranges,  domes,  buttes  and  rivers,  yet  they  are 
not  the  top  o'  the  world,  but  only  the  outlying  ram 
part.  Beyond  them  still  is  the  Main  Crest.  And 
when  you  fish  out  your  map,  you  find  you  are  gazing 


THE  CABIN 

upon  but  a  portion  of  one  quadrangle,  and  there  afe 
many  quadrangles. 

Here,  from  Shuteye,  is  the  one  chance  to  see  the 
watershed  of  the  Joaquin  in  general.  Hereafter 
the  traveller  is  involved  in  smaller  problems  —  the 
mazes  and  labyrinths  of  woods  and  mountains,  the 
expedience  of  trails,  the  grandeurs  of  granite  and 
snow.  Only  occasionally  will  the  giants  among 
which  he  moves  permit  him  a  wide  outlook,  and  then 
fvnly  in  certain  directions. 

Through  the  Big  Country  Billy  and  I  have  ridden 
many  times  in  the  course  of  many  seasons,  yet  we  are 
far  from  knowing  it  well.  Each  year  we  find  new 
meadows,  new  camps,  new  fishing,  even  new  moun 
tains.  And  when  we  pass  on  over  the  ranges  to  the 
Merced  and  Tuolumne  watershed  on  the  north  or 
the  King's  and  Kaweah  on  the  south,  there  opens 
before  us  an  inexhaustible,  beautiful  wonderland. 
In  all  sorts  of  company  we  have  ridden.  Last  year 
I  was  out  six  weeks  quite  alone,  and  in  that  time  held 
mainly  to  the  snow  altitudes.  Again  we  started 
once  in  a  company  of  sixteen  with  twenty-nine 
animals.  These  people  were  Rangers  and  their 
wives:  each  group  of  two  or  three  had  its  own  outfit 
and  did  its  own  cooking:  so  we  journeyed  along  as 
independently  as  though  alone,  and  as  merrily  as 
a  troupe  of  minstrels.  At  the  end  of  a  day  or  so 

184 


THE  BIG  COUNTRY 

duties  began  to  reduce  our  number,  until  at  last 
our  own  people  alone  remained,  pushing  on  to  a 
high-up  lake  where  live  big  trout. 

Throughout  each  and  every  trip  one  has  adven 
tures.  An  adventure  in  the  mountains  means 
anything  out  of  the  ordinary  —  often  a  discomfort 
turned  inside  out.  Our  Supervisor  came  in  one  day 
to  tell  us  how  his  horse  had  fallen  in  a  ford,  his  sup 
plies  and  clothes  wet  through;  and  in  addition  it  came 
dark  and  he  had  to  curl  up  under  a  tree  until  morning, 

"  But  that  was  an  adventure,  wasn't  it  ?"  he  cried 
buoyantly. 

Miss  Bailey,  too,  reported  her  adventure.  Being 
possessed  of  an  ambition  for  Indian  baskets,  she 
rode  down  the  mountain  to  a  rancheria,  but,  return- 
ing,  got  lost  in  the  brush. 

"I'd  always  heard,"  said  she,  "that  if  you  gave 
your  horse  his  head,  he  would  always  take  you  home. 
I  did  so.  He  walked  up  to  a  tree,  tucked  up  one 
hind  leg,  and  went  to  sleep.  It  took  me  until  dark 
to  find  the  trail,  the  sun  was  hot,  and  I  got  all 
scratched  up.  But  it  was  quite  an  adventure, 
wasn't  it?" 

No  one  can  guess  what  the  day  may  bring  forth. 
You  have  fully  made  up  your  mind  to  go  to  the 
Devil's  Post  Pile.  But  after  breakfast,  when  you  go 
out  to  look  for  the  horses,  they  have  disappeared. 

185 


THE  CABIN 

The  bell  is  nowhere  audible.  A  wide  circle  dis 
covers  their  tracks.  These  lead  straight  up  the 
mountain.  The  stones  and  dirt  are  scattered,  and 
the  position  of  the  hoof-marks  indicates  that  the 
animals  were  on  the  keen  jump. 

"Stampeded,"  you  remark  to  yourself,  and  set 
about  looking  for  the  cause.  At  the  spring  is  the 
footprint  of  a  bear.  You  gaze  at  it  with  disgust. 

"  If  you  were  a  big  one,  I  shouldn't  mind,"  you 
soliloquize,  "but  you  weren't  much  bigger  than 
Brudder  Bones!"  " 

All  that  day  you  track  horses.  Sometimes  the 
trail  is  as  easy  to  follow  as  a  path.  Again  you  have 
to  use  all  your  skill  to  spy  out  the  marks  of  iron  on 
granite.  It  becomes  a  game,  and  an  interesting 
one.  When  finally  you  come  on  the  truants  stand 
ing  asleep  in  some  little  green  stringer,  you  are  quite 
pleased  with  yourself,  in  a  way,  although  you  are 
perfectly  well  aware  that  trailing  three  or  four 
horses  anywhere  is  a  very  mild  feat.  Still,  it  is 
an  adventure. 

Because  of  adventures  it  is  exceedingly  difficult 
to  travel  on  any  sort  of  schedule.  You  never  can 
tell  what  is  going  to  happen  to  modify  your  well- 
laid  plans.  An  unexpected  depth  and  softness  of 
snow  or  an  unexpected  volume  of  water  may  spell 
long  delay.  An  inch  on  the  map  means  nothing  but 

186 


THE  BIG  COUNTRY 

uncertainty  —  an  hour  or  a  week  indifferently.  It 
took  me  nine  days  to  go  ten  miles  once. 

But  all  this  is  fine  camp-fire  material.  When  a 
party  of  experienced  mountain  travellers  is  thus 
collected,  some  interesting  yarns  can  be  gathered. 
Adventures  are  almost  always  funny  as  you  look 
back  on  them,  or  at  least  they  are  strongly  leavened 
by  the  humorous  element.  We  once  went  camping 
with  a  mighty  jolly  college  professor  and  his  wife. 
Of  course  we  had  our  good  reliable  outfit  of  animals; 
but,  as  naturally,  they  had  to  pick  up  what  they 
could  get.  Their  pack-horse  was  named  Snowball, 
was  white,  gaunt,  independent,  and  obstinate.  If 
we  all  went  one  side  around  an  obstruction,  he 
generally  showed  the  freedom  of  his  judgment 
by  going  the  other.  He  followed  all  right,  but  liked 
to  choose  his  own  route. 

That  was  all  very  well  as  long  as  we  were  in  a 
forest  country  where  the  going  was  good.  But  when 
we  climbed  above  snowline  the  case  was  different. 
In  that  sort  of  travel  the  leader  picks  the  best  way  — 
sometimes  it  is  the  only  way  —  and  the  others  tread 
pretty  closely  in  his  footsteps.  We  told  this  to 
Snowball,  and  predicted  trouble:  but  that  ancient 
animal,  with  bucolic  obstinacy,  knew  better.  Fi 
nally  the  expected  happened.  We  came  to  a  brook 
running  under  a  snow-field.  Naturally  this  formed 

187 


THE  CABIN 

snow  bridges,  more  or  less  strong;  and  obviously 
the  proper  way  to  cross  that  brook  was  through  an 
opening,  and  not  over  a  snow  bridge.  Snowball 
thought  otherwise.  The  rotten  snow  caved  through. 
Snowball  plunged,  heaved,  finally  turned  upside 
down.  We  arrived  to  find  his  nose  and  four  hoofs 
visible. 

This  was  bad  enough,  but  all  at  once  it  occurred 
to  our  friends  that  not  only  was  the  pack  upside 
down,  but  in  the  stream!  The  girls  raced  to  the 
lower  end  of  that  snow  tunnel.  Just  in  time!  They 
rescued  a  potato  bobbing  gaily  in  the  swift  current. 

So  while  the  Professor  and  I  dug  out  that  fool 
horse,  and  got  him  to  his  feet  and  out  of  that  hole, 
the  two  girls  stationed  themselves  either  side  the 
stream,  like  cats  watching  a  mouse-hole,  waiting 
for  things  to  come  out  the  orifice  of  that  black  tunnel. 
Every  moment  or  so  one  would  scream  in  triumph 
or  dismay.  Potatoes,  onions,  provision  bags, 
clothes,  even  a  pot  or  so  —  everything  but  bedding, 
and  that  could  not  get  away  —  shot  forth,  was  cap 
tured,  and  joined  its  disconsolate  companions  on  the 
rocks.  It  did  not  seem  funny  at  the  time. 

One  summer,  when  I  was  out  alone,  I  made  a 
long  ride  down  into  the  mile-deep  cup  of  Hite's 
Cove,  out  again  over  the  steep  ridge,  and  so  into  the 
canon  of  the  Merced.  There,  to  my  consternation*  I 

it* 


THE  BIG  COUNTRY 

discovered  that  the  new  railroad  into  Yosemite  had 
been  laid  directly  over  the  old  trail,  and  that  no  new 
one  had  been  constructed.  The  right  of  way  was 
the  only  route.  To  the  one  side  was  a  drop-off  of 
from  ten  to  thirty  feet  into  the  torrential  river;  on 
the  other,  unscalable  cliffs.  It  was  fully  three  miles 
up  the  canon  before  the  trail  turned  off  to  climb  the 
canon  walls.  The  situation  was  not  appealing,  if 
one  met  a  train  —  or  was  overtaken  by  one  —  for 
the  curves  were  so  numerous  and  so  sharp  that  there 
would  be  no  chance  for  "down  brakes." 

I  sat  down  and  cogitated  for  some  time.  Then 
a  bright  idea  struck  me.  I  waited  patiently  until 
a  train  passed  going  up.  Then  I  followed  it  as  fast 
as  I  could  travel.  I  argued  that  in  three  miles 
that  train  would  not  be  likely  either  to  turn  around 
and  come  back  or  to  pass  another. 

It  was  a  bright  idea  all  right.  Only  at  about  the 
mile-and-a-half  point  I  came  around  the  corner  on 
a  track  inspector's  car  coming  my  way.  It  was  a 
gasoline  car,  without  a  muffler,  and  sported  a  bright 
yellow  canopy  top! 

Everybody's  movements  were  guided  by  instinc 
tive  reactions,  for  nobody  had  time  to  think.  The 
track  inspector  stopped.  I  hadn't  time  to  get  off, 
so  I  threw  myself  strongly  toward  the  cliff.  The 
two  animals  just  flew  out  into  space.  They  were  so 

189 


THE  CABIN 

terror-stricken  that  they  never  even  turned  around, 
but  jumped  plump  off  the  right  of  way  and  into  the 
Merced. 

I  fell  on  a  pile  of  stones  and  skinned  myself  up 
somewhat.  After  I  had  found  I  could  still  walk,  I 
looked  over  the  edge.  The  animals  had  lit  on  a 
shallow  bar.  I  clambered  down,  and  after  con 
siderable  manoeuvring  got  them  back  to  the  tracks 
—  the  gasoline  car,  at  my  earnest  request  had 
gone  on.  In  ten  minutes  more  we  turned  off  to  the 
ascending  trail.  A  slight  twist  of  Flapjack's  fore 
foot  —  from  which  he  soon  recovered  —  and  a 
"busted-up"  right  hand  for  myself  comprised  the  list 
of  casualties.  For  five  weeks  the  latter  bothered  me 
enough  to  call  out  some  ingenuity  in  camp  work 
and  packing.  This  was  not  especially  funny  at 
the  time.  Yet  can  you  imagine  a  situation  more 
inherently  comic  ?  In  the  depths  of  the  wildest 
country  in  California,  two  mountain-bred  animals 
confronted  without  warning  by  a  gasoline  car  with 
a  yellow  top! 

Another  time  I  was  working  my  way  up  through 
a  pass  filled  with  snow.  The  month  was  August, 
but  the  precipitation  had  been  unusual  the  winter 
before,  and  the  zigzag  trail  was  quite  buried.  Only 
occasionally  did  eight  or  ten  feet  of  it  show  where  a 
bare  patch  had  melted.  As  the  slope  was  very  steep, 

190 


THE  BIG  COUNTRY 

it  was  impossible  to  walk  the  animals  out  over  the 
snow.  Therefore  I  was  engaged  busily  in  chopping 
footholds,  in  kicking  shale  into  a  species  of  solidity, 
and  generally  working  like  a  beaver  after  the  manner 
of  one  "  getting  through  the  country."  In  this  way 
we  reached  nearly  to  the  saddle  of  the  pass.  To  go 
through  the  gap  we  had  to  skirt  the  upper  edge  of 
a  living  glacier  just  over  sixteen  hundred  feet  in 
height.  I  would  leave  Demi  and  Flapjack  standing 
while  I  made  trail.  After  I  had  accomplished  forty 
or  fifty  feet  of  it,  I  would  lead  them  along. 

Flapjack  is  the  most  sensible  mule  I  have  ever 
owned  or  had  anything  to  do  with.  He  possesses 
many  characteristics  I  should  like  to  point  out  to  the 
instinct-only  school  of  naturalists  —  such  as  a  genuine 
love  of  scenery,  a  dog's  faithfulness,  and  innumerable 
instances  where  he  has  worked  out  original  problems 
by  means  of  at  least  an  extraordinary  imitation  of 
mental  processes.  But  in  the  present  instance  he 
made  a  mistake.  Becoming  bored  with  our  slow 
progress  —  Flapjack  is  easily  bored,  like  most  in 
telligent  people  —  he  wandered  out  on  the  snow- 
field.  Zip!  each  hoof  skated  in  a  different  direction! 
Flapjack  began  to  slide  on  his  belly,  head  on.  It 
was  exactly  like  coasting  —  the  same  increasing 
descent,  the  same  momently  accelerating  speed  — 
and  a  slope  of  sixteen  hundred  feet  on  which  to  gather 

191 


THE  CABIN 

momentum!  There  was  nothing  to  do.  I  stood 
erect  and  waved  my  hat  at  that  rapidly  disappear 
ing  black  mule. 

"Good-bye,  Flap!"   I   shouted. 

Then  I  began  to  adjust  my  ideas  to  the  thought 
of  climbing  all  that  weary  way  down  again.  I  was 
alone,  and  days  in  from  civilization.  It  would  be 
necessary  to  collect  from  the  ruined  pack  what  I 
could  carry  comfortably  on  my  saddle  horse.  The 
bulk  of  the  pack,  the  mule,  and  his  outfit  were,  of 
course,  a  total  loss.  All  these  considerations  came 
into  my  mind,  were  appraised  and  adjusted  while 
poor  old  Flapjack  was  sliding  over  the  shoulder  of 
the  glacier  before  the  last  steep  plunge.  Then  I 
saw  him  stop  with  a  jerk  that  seemed  almost  to 
snap  his  head  off  and  hang  motionless,  a  little  black 
speck  on  the  whiteness.  Snatching  my  riata  from 
the  saddle  and  the  little  safety  hand-axe  from  the 
saddle-bags,  I  made  my  way  as  quickly  as  I  could 
over  the  shale  and  along  the  edge  of  the  snow-field 
to  a  point  opposite  where  Flap  had  brought  up. 
Then  I  cut  footholds  out;  got  the  rope  around  Flap's 
neck;  returned  to  the  shale;  took  a  turn  around  a 
projecting  and  solid  boulder,  and  started  up  the  mule. 
At  the  end  of  the  rope  he  partly  scrambled,  partly  slid 
in  a  semicircle  to  the  comparative  safety  of  the  shale. 
Then  I  took  a  look  to  see  what  had  stopped  him. 

192 


THE  BIG  COUNTRY 

It  was  a  small  triangular  rock  projecting  above 
the  surface  of  the  snow.  I  looked  carefully,  but  as 
near  as  I  could  see  it  was  the  only  rock  on  the  half- 
mile  expanse  of  the  glacier.  Furthermore,  it  would 
have  been  too  small  to  have  stopped  the  mule  if  he 
had  not  hit  it  accurately.  The  least  preponderance 
of  weight  either  side  would  have  swung  him  around 
it.  After  that  adventure  Flap  attended  strictly 
to  business  and  did  not  attempt  any  more  indepen 
dent  excursions  unless  he  knew  exactly  what  he 
was  about. 

Sometimes  the  adventure  is  of  daily  occurrence, 
but  it  does  not  cease  being  an  adventure  for  all  that. 
Of  this  class  was  Old  Slippery. 

Old  Slippery  was  an  eiderdown  quilt  belonging  to 
a  girl.  It  was  light  as  feathers  and  silk  could  be; 
it  was  very  warm;  and  —  the  owner  assured  us  — 
unexcelled  for  making  a  comfortable  bed.  But  I 
had  to  pack  Old  Slippery.  That  was  my  little 
daily  adventure. 

For  not  only  did  Old  Slippery  earn  its  name  from 
obvious  characteristics,  but  it  was  as  delicate  as  an 
unboiled  Easter-egg.  The  silk  cover  was  as  easily 
punctured  as  a  soap  bubble.  The  least  projection 
among  the  constituents  of  the  pack,  the  smallest 
twig,  the  gentlest  accidental  scrape  against  a  rock, 
was  sufficient  to  gouge  a  neat  triangular  hole. 

193 


THE  CABIN 

Through  that  hole  floated  gently  clouds  of  eider 
down.  In  that  quilt  were  magicked  some  five  hun 
dred  cubic  yards  of  down.  I  know:  for  we  lost  out 
at  least  three  hundred,  and  the  comforter  was  still 
plump  and  soft. 

Having  surrounded  Old  Slippery  with  all  loving 
care  and  soft  things,  it  became  necessary  to  tuck 
in  the  top  canvas  in  such  manner  as  to  protect  the 
quilt  against  the  accidents  and  incidents  of  a  day's 
journey.  This  took  time  and  thought  and  profanity 
and  stuffing  in.  Finally  we  would  throw  the  hitch. 
Then  a  corner  of  Old  Slippery  would  be  discovered 
sticking  out  just  where  the  first  sapling  would  catch 
it.  We  stuffed  that  in.  Promptly  Old  Slippery 
burst  forth  at  another  place.  After  ten  minutes  of 
this  the  playful  old  thing  would  decide  to  be  good, 
and  we  would  make  our  start  for  the  day. 

At  first  one  always  gets  the  impression  that  the 
start  for  the  day  is  made  only  after  a  good  hard  day's 
work  is  done.  So  many  things  have  happened! 
You  have  arisen  and  washed  and  dressed  —  no  light 
feat,  with  the  thermometer  well  below  freezing  and 
the  meadow  white  with  frost.  Then  there  is  break 
fast  to  cook  and  eat,  the  dishes  to  wash,  the  utensils 
and  food  to  stow  away,  the  beds  to  be  folded,  all 
the  camp  to  be  packed  for  travel.  The  horses  must 
be  caught,  unhobbled  —  frosty  buckles  and  straps  — 

194 


THE  BIG  COUNTRY 

led  a  greater  or  lesser  distance  to  camp,  saddied, 
finally  packed.  You  put  out  your  campfire  at  last 
with  the  feeling  that  it  is  lucky  you  do  not  belong  to 
the  union  or  your  time  would  be  nearly  up.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  it  is  more  the  multiplicity  than  the 
duration  that  has  impressed  you.  By  getting  up  at 
five  I  can,  when  alone,  be  under  way  by  half-past 
six.  A  larger  and  more  complex  party  will  take 
from  two  to  three  hours. 

Then  begins  the  day's  journey  in  the  freshness  of 
the  morning.  The  air  is  crisp;  the  birds  are  all 
singing;  the  dash  of  the  stream  and  the  oversong  of 
the  trees  are  in  your  ears,  the  dazzle  of  snow  and 
granite  in  your  eyes.  The  world  is  very  good.  You 
attack  the  problems  of  routes,  trails,  difficulties  of 
the  way,  with  enthusiasm. 

Time  slips  away  on  wings  for  five  or  six  hours. 
Then  somehow  the  animals  begin  to  be  irritating. 
A  certain  pack-horse  named  Bingo  irritates  you 
strangely  by  his  habit  of  walking  a  few  steps  from 
the  trail  to  crop  greedily  until  the  very  latest  moment. 
Your  saddle  is  getting  hard,  and  shifting  does  little 
good.  If  you  are  not  quite  certain  of  your  route, 
you  grow  impatient  over  that  fact.  You  are  not 
tired,  of  course,  but  you  are  apt  to  be  a  little  cross 
and  brooding. 

Then  quite  unexpectedly  a  patch  cf  green  shows 

195 


THE  CABIN 

to  right  or  left.  You  ride  down  pessimistically. 
Yes,  there  is  good  water  after  all.  It  will  do.  The 
saddles  and  packs  are  thrown  off,  the  horses  hobbled 
and  turned  loose  to  graze.  Everything  is  in  a  most 
discouraging  mess. 

Still,  you  tell  yourself,  doggedness  does  it.  One  at 
a  time  you  overcome  such  simple  tasks  as  collecting 
firewood,  carrying  the  canvas  bucket  full  of  water, 
searching  out  the  grub  bags,  slicing  the  meat.  The 
crackle  of  the  fire  and  the  bubble  of  water  cheer 
you  somewhat.  You  get  up  energy  enough  for  a 
wash. 

A  half-hour  later  you  are  drawing  at  your  pipe 
with  a  comfortable  sense  of  repletion  beneath  a 
loosened  belt.  This  is  a  bully  place  to  camp; 
couldn't  be  beat.  Running  water,  fine  horse-feed, 
heaps  of  firewood,  and  level  places  for  beds.  And 
just  look  at  the  scenery!  Where' d  you  beat  that? 
Guess  I'll  make  me  a  fir  bed,  and  try  for  trout 
awhile.  Horses  seem  to  be  enjoying  it.  That  Bingo 
is  in  good  shape:  he  knows  how  to  take  care  of  him 
self  —  gets  pretty  near  a  full  meal  every  day  along 
the  trail! 


196 


TROUT 


XVII 

TROUT 

THE  Eastern  trout  fisherman  is  likely  to  receive  a 
shock  when  first  he  angles  in  the  Big  Country. 

He  is  probably  accustomed  to  streams  wherein 
every  pool,  every  riffle,  every  hole,  if  not  easily  ac 
cessible,  is  at  least  possible.  Probably  he  is  used 
to  wading  his  brooks.  At  any  rate  he  would  consider 
himself  most  neglectful  and  slipshod  were  he  to  pass 
over  even  a  single  bit  of  water  where  a  trout  might 
lurk.  If  occasionally  the  chance  of  thicket  or  of 
steep  bank  secludes  a  pool  from  his  first  attention, 
he  is  certain  eventually,  by  the  exercise  of  ingenuity, 
to  drop  a  fly  in  that  protected  spot. 

Also  our  Eastern  brook-fishing  is  apt  to  be  a 
leisurely  affair.  We  drop  gently  down  the  stream, 
flicking  our  flies  to  right  or  left,  pausing  often  to 
whip  out  thoroughly  some  especially  inviting  pool. 
Once  in  a  while  we  have  to  break  through  a  little 
thick  brush  or  clamber  up  a  steep  bank.  Then  we 
pant  heavily  and  think  it  pretty  hard  going,  until  we 
get  back  again  to  our  amphibious  environment. 

199 


THE  CABIN 

Nor  is  the  case  of  the  hill  fishing  much  different. 
There  is  more  scrambling  to  do,  and  perhaps  a  trifle 
more  brush.  But  the  progress  is  always  pleasantly 
and  steadily  downhill,  and  never  is  one  separated 
far  from  the  beloved  stream. 

When  our  gentle  angler  comes  West,  however, 
the  whole  logic  of  the  game  is  changed.  Looking 
down  from  above  on  one  of  the  swift  torrential 
mountain  streams,  his  heart  is  filled  with  joy.  One 
after  another  the  deep  green  bubble-shot  pools 
receive  the  cascades  and  falls  of  white  water;  long 
dark  cliff-hung  stretches  hint  of  the  big  fellows; 
hundreds  of  yards  of  fluted  riffles  swirling  about 
boulders  tell  of  the  smaller  fry.  He  scrambles 
eagerly  down  to  the  stream's  edge.,  The  casting 
is  all  that  could  be  desired;  he  gets  a  strike  almost  at 
the  first  drop  of  the  fly.  Three  fine  fish  reward  him. 
Full  of  pleasant  anticipations,  he  prepares  then  to 
move  down  to  the  next  pool  below.  He  cannot. 
At  this  point  his  troubles  begin. 

For,  coincidentally,  at  this  point  the  cliffs  rise  sheer 
on  either  side.  The  next  pool  is  just  around  the 
corner  —  but  the  corner  is  fifty  or  sixty  feet  high. 
Our  angler  looks  up  in  despair. 

"Have  I  got  to  climb  over  that  thing?"  he  de 
mands  fiercely. 

A   universal   silence   seems   to   give   assent.     He 

200 


TROUT 

clambers  and  clings  and  slides,  over  and  down  — 
the  pool  lies  below  him,  but  quite  out  of  reach  ex 
cept,  perhaps,  by  means  of  a  rope.  From  above 
he  can  see  the  big  trout  rising  and  falling  slowly  as 
is  the  habit  of  the  mountain  fish  in  the  deep  clear 
pools.  After  a  dozen  futile  attempts,  he  gives  it 
up.  And  in  the  course  of  the  next  mile  he  gets  at 
that  fascinating,  desirable,  irritating  stream  but 
three  or  four  times.  Also  he  has  climbed  and 
scrambled  and  scratched  himself  to  a  state  of  pant- 
ing  exhaustion. 

Now  everybody  knows  that  the  ethics  and  canons 
of  sportsmen  are  as  the  laws  of  the  Medes.  Nothing 
more  ironclad  can  be  imagined.  Not  only  is  it  un 
sportsmanlike  to  do  things  contrary  to  the  way  you 
have  been  brought  up  to  do  them;  but  it  is  no  fun! 
Similarly,  automatics  and  pump  guns  and  mechani 
cal  fish-hooks  and  salt  logs  and  jacking  and  other 
atrocities  of  the  kind  would  give  a  true  sportsman 
no  pleasure  at  all.  These  are  matters  of  ethics. 
But  then  there  are  also  matters  of  habit.  A  thing 
may  be  quite  proper  and  yet  be  irritating  in  concep 
tion  and  execution  because  it  runs  contrary  to  the 
way  we  have  always  done  things.  It  all  depends 
on  training,  of  course.  Some  people  quite  sincerely 
consider  bait  for  trout  unsportsmanlike.  If  they 
cannot  catch  with  a  fly,  they  will  not  catch  at  all. 

201 


THE  CABIN 

Personally  I  prefer  fly-fishing  above  all  others,  and 
would  never  use  any  other  method  if  the  fish  are 
rising  even  occasionally:  but  if  it  is  a  case  of  "wums 
or  nothing"  with  them,  I  am  not  the  man  to  deny  va 
worthy  trout  anything  in  reason. 

This  is  just  the  case  of  our  Eastern  angler.  It 
irritates  him  horribly  to  leave  all  those  excellent  pools 
unfished.  They  haunt  him.  Regrets  fill  his  heart. 
He  is  thoroughly  unhappy  about  them,  and  is  op 
pressed  with  a  genuine  feeling  of  guilt  at  having  done 
the  thing  incompletely.  So  much  of  sport  is  the 
thoroughness  and  smartness  with  which  we  do 
things!  By  night  all  his  sacred  traditions  are 
shattered.  He  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  moun 
tain  fishing  is  rather  poor,  very  hard  work,  and  not 
much  fun. 

Of  course,  after  a  time  he  changes  his  mind.  He 
comes  to  realize  the  limitations  of  the  human  frame 
as  opposed  to  large,  abrasive,  and  immovable  moun 
tains.  When  this  idea  has  quite  penetrated,  it  forces 
out  the  other  Eastern-bred  notion:  he  comes  to  see 
that  the  fishable  pools  are  in  the  minority.  As  a 
next  step,  he  learns  to  ignore  the  inaccessibles,  and 
to  look  with  practised  eye  for  those  places  vouch 
safed  him  by  the  kindness  of  the  Red  Gods.  He 
fishes  a  pool,  and  walks  quite  cheerfully  by  a  dozen 
to  fish  another. 

202 


TROUT 

It  is  a  very  simple  bit  of  practical  philosophy  to 
acquire.  Yet  you  who  are  anglers  will  understand. 
All  the  old  traditions  soaked  in  with  the  splash 
ing  sunlight,  the  gurgling  cold  water,  the  twilight 
shadows  of  a  thousand  days  of  a  hundred  Eastern 
streams  have  had  to  be  eradicated.  The  sacredness 
of  What-has-always-been  has  had  to  give  way. 
Conservatism  and  radicalism;  institutions  and  new 
ideas;  progress  and  content  —  why,  if  the  list  were 
only  continued  a  little  we  would  find  ourselves  in 
essence  face  to  face  with  all  the  old  antagonisms 
of  our  race!  When  our  Easterner  begins  to  love  the 
mountain  fishing,  he  has  undergone  more  than  a 
change  of  ideas  in  regard  to  trout  pools.  It  would 
be  curious  to  follow  him  back  to  his  home,  to  see 
his  old  accustomed  affairs  as  he  will  see  them  now. 

As  he  looks  back  on  that  first  day's  sport,  he 
laughs  at  himself.  He  sees  now  that,  while  he  did 
not  fish  half  the  pools,  he  caught  twice  the  fish,  of 
greater  weight,  and  as  high  a  degree  of  gameness  as 
he  was  accustomed  to  in  his  old  haunts.  In  addi 
tion  he  will  remember  the  crisp  mountain  air,  the 
great  hillsides,  the  chaos  of  granite  over  which  the 
white  water  boiled,  the  giants  with  their  snow  capes 
about  their  mighty  shoulders  calm  against  the 
heaven  —  that  sky  of  the  unbelievable  deep  clear 
blue  peculiar  to  the  high  altitudes,  a  uniform  colour 

203 


THE  CABIN 

from  zenith  to  horizon.  Then  he  is  in  a  fair  way  to 
become  an  enthusiast. 

For  one  thing,  he  learns  not  to  be  in  so  much  of 
a  hurry  to  move  on  after  he  has  struggled  to  his 
pool.  More  likely  now  he  will  light  a  pipe  and 
straddle  a  boulder,  and  cast  again  and  again  over 
the  creaming  or  darkling  waters.  Every  once  in  a 
while  one  of  the  inhabitants  will  rise  to  his  lure. 
He  confesses  to  a  growing  astonishment  at  the 
number  of  these. 

I  remember  one  hole  where  for  two  weeks  I  fished 
every  afternoon.  A  big  yellow  pine  had  fallen  out 
into  the  stream,  and  the  eddy  had  scooped  a  deep 
hollow  in  the  sands  beneath.  The  swift  current 
boiled  up  from  under  it.  Thirty  feet  or  so  down 
stream  was  a  sandbar  on  which  one  could  stand 
ankle-deep.  Beginning  at  the  shoreward  end  of 
that  log,  I  would  cast  foot  by  foot  until  I  touched 
the  swirl  around  its  tip.  By  that  time  I  had  caught 
my  two  dozen.  There  were  three  of  us  in  the  party, 
and  we  could  eat  two  dozen  a  day.  Throughout 
the  entire  period  of  our  stay,  except  for  occasional 
curiosity,  I  never  fished  anywhere  else.  I  suppose 
each  day  new  fish  took  the  places  of  those  that  had 
been  caught.  At  any  rate,  the  supply  seemed  in 
exhaustible:  the  last  two  dozen  came  as  rapidly  as 
the  first.  Often  I  have  sat  on  a  boulder,  casting 

204 


TROUT 

occasionally  to  see  if  they  were  ready  to  take  hold, 
while  more  restless  companions  would  search  always 
on  and  on  for  pools  where  they  were  biting.  For 
a  long  time  I  would  catch  nothing:  then  they  would 
begin  to  strike.  By  dark  I  would  have  as  many 
as  the  rest. 

But  I  must  confess  that  the  fascination  of  wander 
ing  is  more  often  in  the  ascendant.  It  is  fun  to 
scramble  over  points,  to  slide  down  rock  shutes, 
to  wade  gingerly  along  submerged  ledges,  to  give 
your  whole  soul  to  getting  from  this  point  to  that  — 
with  always  the  possibility  of  the  Big  One,  of  course. 
In  that  manner  one  is  more  apt  to  have  adventures 
than  if  one  should  sit  still.  I  have  encountered 
bears  on  the  same  errand  as  myself.  Sometimes  by 
the  edge  of  the  water  one  comes  upon  a  red  mineral 
stain,  and  a  tiny  fountain  welling  up  through  a  round 
hole  in  the  rock.  The  rubber  cup  then  dips  up  a 
drink  of  the  most  delicious  sparkling  soda  water. 
The  quaint  water  ouzel  flits  up  and  down  the  stream. 
If  you  are  in  great  luck,  you  may  see  her  walk  calmly 
down  below  the  surface  of  the  current.  How  she 
maintains  herself  against  it,  I  am  unable  to  guess. 
In  the  mean  time  the  little  ouzels  squawk  and  cheep 
like  a  lot  of  baby  robins  in  anticipation  of  a  meal. 
Sometimes  the  hillsides  rise  through  the  pines  in  a 
long  even  slope.  Sometimes  they  jump  in  rock 

205 


THE  CABIN 

ledges.  Again  you  feel  yourself  an  atom  in  the 
twilight  inferno  of  a  deep  gorge  through  which  the 
river  runs  hollowly.  You  slip  and  stumble  over 
boulders:  you  manoeuvre  your  rod  through  thickets: 
you  walk  gingerly  over  long  smooth  fields  of  un 
broken  rock:  you  wander  at  ease  over  tiny  meadows, 
broad  bars,  where  the  footing  is  solid  and  the  casting 
easy. 

But  the  casting  is  always  that,  once  you  have 
gained  a  casting  position.  The  spring  freshets  see 
to  it  that  your  back  cast  has  room. 

And  always,  at  any  moment,  you  may  look  up  to 
the  serenity  of  great  mountains  and  flawless  skies. 
They,  and  the  joys  of  exploration,  would  be  enough 
even  without  the  trout. 

But  the  trout  are  good,  exceedingly  so.  As  in 
most  streams,  they  run  big  and  little.  The  average 
mountain  rainbow,  the  fellow  you  expect  generally 
when  you  cast  into  a  likely-looking  pool,  runs  from 
eight  to  fifteen  inches,  and  is  game  for  his  weight. 
The  fingerlings  do  not  bother  one  much,  for  some 
reason.  Big  trout  frequent  certain  localities. 

I  shall  never  forget  one  place.  It  was  about  nine 
thousand  feet  up,  in  a  cup  of  granite  perhaps  three 
or  four  miles  across,  and  circled  on  three  sides  by 
very  tall  mountains.  In  the  cup  was  a  lake  fringed 
by  a  narrow  band  of  lodgepole  pine  and  willow.  A 

206 


TROUT 

tumbling,  brawling  stream  fell  from  the  snows  into 
the  upper  end  of  the  lake.  At  the  lower  end  it  stole 
quietly  out  through  a  beautiful  open  poplar  woods 
for  a  quarter-mile.  Then  it  fell  and  leaped  and 
tumbled  away  down  the  mountain. 

The  poplar  woods  were  open,  as  I  have  said,  and 
flecked  with  warm  sunlight,  and  full  of  birds.  The 
river  flowed  quietly,  its  surface  almost  glassy  in  its 
reflections  of  the  checker  of  very  blue  sky  and  of 
translucent  green  leaves.  Yet  when  I  looked  closely 
I  could  see  the  waving  marks  of  a  strong  current 
and  eddy  sweeping  on,  like  the  almost  invisible  swirls 
in  a  thick  green  glass.  Through  them  the  bottom 
wavered  and  trembled  slightly,  and  so  I  appreciated 
the  volume  of  water  flowing  through  this  quiet  glade. 

The  light  undergrowth  grew  to  the  edge  of  the 
bank,  and  the  bank  itself  was  chopped  off  square 
and  steep  only  a  foot  or  so  above  the  water.  In 
some  places  it  was  deeply  undermined,  the  top  held 
together  by  interlaced  roots.  Trees  leaned  peril 
ously.  Some  had  even  yielded,  and,  falling  into 
the  current,  had  been  swept  at  a  long  angle  with 
the  stream's  bed,  there  to  form  mysterious  holes 
and  shadows. 

I  crept  to  the  edge  and  looked  in.  Through  the 
green  water  the  bottom  was  plainly  to  be  seen,  with 
all  its  hills  and  vales,  its  old  snags,  its  rocks,  and  the 

207 


THE  CABIN 

clean  white  sand.  In  some  places  it  was  at  least 
twelve  feet  deep,  and  nowhere  less  than  four  or 
five.  Yet  every  inch  of  it  was  visible,  as  plainly 
as  though  in  the  air,  save  for  that  translucent  green 
and  the  delicate  waving  swirls  like  the  shadows  in 
thick  green  glass. 

Trout  lay  singly,  in  twos  and  threes.  Some  were 
close  to  the  bottom  in  plain  sight,  their  gill-covers 
moving  slowing.  Others  could  be  made  out  dimly 
as  shadows  in  the  shadows.  All  were  big.  There 
were  no  little  ones  at  all.  From  where  I  stood  - 
and  I  could  see  only  a  hundred  feet  or  so  of  the  stream 
—  I  counted  twenty-odd.  Judging  by  the  samples 
I  caught  later,  not  one  weighed  less  than  three 
pounds.  As  for  the  largest,  I'm  not  foolish  enough 
even  to  guess  at  him. 

I  was  not  out  to  fish  that  afternoon,  but  I  made  a 
hurried  round  trip  to  camp  and  back  to  that  aqua 
rium.  Then,  concealed  in  the  brush,  I  began  to 
manipulate  my  flies.  You  fishermen  all  know  how 
hopeless  it  seems  when  you  can  actually  disapprove 
of  your  fish  in  plain  view.  You  cast  seductively 
in  front  of  the  biggest  in  sight.  He  pays  absolutely 
no  attention  whatever  to  your  efforts.  Finally  when 
you  annoy  him  enough,  he  fades  away.  Or  else 
he  merely  opens  and  shuts  his  gills  three  or  four 
times.  After  you  have  cast  your  arm  lame  some 

208 


TROUT 

little  fellow  rushes  madly  out  from  somewhere  and 
seizes  your  fly.  He  turns  that  pool  upside  down 
before  you  succeed  in  landing  him.  When  the 
bubbles  cease,  there  is  the  big  one  communing  wisely 
with  himself  on  the  vanity  of  human  endeavour. 

There  is  one  way,  however,  and  that  lies  through 
the  gates  of  patience.  Of  course,  if  your  fish  has 
seen  you,  then  you  might  as  well  pack  up  and  move 
on.  But  if  he  is  unaware  of  your  existence,  and 
you  will  cast  and  cast  and  cast,  and  rest,  and  then 
cast  some  more,  perseveringly  and  accurately  and 
skilfully,  why,  sooner  or  later  that  big  fish  is  going 
to  become  annoyed. 

"Great  guns!"  he  will  remark  to  himself;  "that 
red  and  white  thing's  a  nuisance!  It  disturbs  my 
meditations." 

Mightily,  almost  lazily  he  will  rise;  turn  slightly; 
take  your  fly  gently  in  his  mouth;  and,  still  with 
dignified  deliberation,  turn  to  depart  with  it.  Then 
is  your  cue  to  strike  —  if  you  can  swallow  your  heart 
in  time. 

I  fished  cautiously  all  the  afternoon.  It  would  be 
rash  even  to  guess  at  the  number  of  enormous  trout 
inhabiting  that  quarter-mile  of  stream.  They  were 
not  rising.  Not  one  in  a  hundred  even  knew  my 
fly  was  skittering  across  the  water;  or,  if  he  did 
know,  he  did  not  care.  But  then,  big  fish  are  never 

209 


THE  CABIN 

"rising"  in  the  sense  that  smaller  fish  rise  —  hungrily, 
eagerly,  in  a  rush.  Otherwise  there  would  be  no 
more  big  fish,  for  they  would  all  be  caught  out.  Yet, 
by  keeping  at  it,  I  landed  four.  They  were  about  of 
a  size.  I  had  no  scales,  but  they  were  from  a  half- 
inch  to  three  inches  longer  than  the  first  joint  of  my 
saddle  rod;  and  that  is  just  twenty-three  inches. 
In  the  stream  were  several  fish  bigger  than  those  I 
caught. 

I  measured  them,  and  returned  them  carefully 
to  the  water,  for  I  was  travelling  alone,  and  had  no 
use  for  so  much  fish.  Then  in  the  half-hour  of  good 
light  remaining,  I  dropped  to  where  the  water  leaped 
down  the  granite,  and  caught  four  ordinary  trout 
for  supper. 

The  trout  hog  is  always  a  great  puzzle  to  me. 
There  are  plenty  of  the  species  roaming  around  - 
men  who  catch  a  hundred  or  so  fish  and  leave  them 
piled  in  a  rotting  heap.  If  a  man  were  confined  in 
his  fishing  to  just  what  he  can  eat,  I  could  see  some 
colour  of  reason  — though  not  the  slightest  excuse  - 
for  such  a  performance.  When  I  travel  alone,  two 
or  three  ordinary  trout  are  all  I  can  possibly  get  away 
with  at  a  meal;  and  a  single  big  one  would  stump  me 
completely.  That  would  not  be  much  fishing  for 
an  enthusiastic  angler.  I  could  imagine  a  strong 
temptation  to  catch  "just  one  more,"  even  if  the 

310 


TROUT 

probabilities  were  strong  that  the  one  more  would  be 
wasted.  As  a  matter  of  fact  I  catch  just  as  many 
as  I  have  time  for  —  and  put  them  back.  This 
should  be  done  gently,  with  wetted  hand.  Then  it 
does  not  injure  the  fish  in  the  least:  on  the  contrary 
it  furnishes  him  with  healthful  and  much  needed 
exercise.  Only  if  he  bleeds  at  the  gills  is  he  in 
distress.  Then  I  slip  him  in  the  creel  —  or  old 
flour  sack,  rather,  in  the  wilderness  —  and  add  him 
to  the  larder.  In  this  manner  it  is  possible  to  enjoy 
a  full  day's  sport,  and  to  leave  the  stream  almost  as 
populous  as  when  you  cast  your  first  fly  over  it. 

By  hooking  your  scales  through  the  loop  of  your 
leader,  you  can  weigh  your  catch.  By  measuring 
ofF  inches  on  the  butt  of  your  rod,  you  can  measure 
him.  Then  disengage  him  gently  from  the  hook, 
slide  him  in  the  water,  and  wish  him  God-speed. 
He  will  lie  quite  still  for  a  moment  or  so  "getting  his 
breath,"  as  you  might  say.  Then  he  will  drop 
slowly  out  of  sight. 

I  once  fished  for  some  weeks  where  I  had  an  op 
portunity  of  making  some  interesting  experiments. 
Two  very  large  pools  lay  one  above  the  other.  I 
built  between  them  a  loose  barrier,  but  sufficiently 
close  to  prevent  the  trout  passing  from  one  pool  to 
the  other.  Whenever  I  caught  a  trout,  I  first  nicked 
his  hard  gill  cover  with  a  knife,  then  transferred 

211 


THE  CABIN 

him  to  the  other  pool.  At  last  I  had  nearly  the 
whole  population  concentrated  in  the  upper  basin. 
Then  I  began  to  transfer  them  back  again,  watching 
carefully  for  signs  of  injury.  Whenever  they  had 
been  handled  with  a  damp  hand,  they  seemed  as 
healthy  as  ever.  A  very  dry  hand  did  no  injury  as 
long  as  the  grasp  was  not  too  firm.  But  if  the  fine 
slime  became  rubbed  from  the  fish's  sides,  it  seemed 
to  afford  opportunity  for  parasitic  or  diseased 
growths.  Some  of  the  fish  I  caught  as  many  as 
eight  times  apiece.  Generally  they  would  rise 
as  eagerly  as  ever  the  day  after  being  played  to  a 
finish.  About  fifteen  or  sixteen  hours  was  the 
shortest  interval. 

My  own  practice  in  fishing  alone  is  exactly  the 
reverse  of  accepted  fishermen's  doctrine:  I  put 
back  all  the  big  ones,  and  keep  the  little  six  or  seven 
inch  fellows.  The  latter  are  better  eating,  and  the 
lone  fisherman  can  do  more  in  the  way  of  numbers. 
Of  course,  if  one  is  out  with  a  party  of  friends,  he 
likes  to  lug  in  Leviathan  and  brag  thereon,  and  do 
a  little  exhibiting  with  pride.  That  is  half  the  fun. 
But  then,  Leviathan  goes  pretty  well  fried  in  sections, 
or  broiled,  or  as  basis  for  a  fine  old-fashioned 
"  mulligan." 

Trout-fishing  here  varies  as  the  mountains  vary. 
[  would  not  have  you  understand  that  the  foregoing 

212 


TROUT 

descriptions  tell  it  all;  only  the  typical,  what  you  are 
most  likely  to  find. 

There  are  streams  that  flow  for  miles  through  wide 
alpine  meadows,  where  you  can  walk  along  the  sod 
and  cast  off  the  bank.  There  are  other  streams  deep 
and  wide,  that  resemble  our  Eastern  rivers.  There 
are  astonishing  little  trickles  you  can  straddle,  and 
from  which  you  must  fill  your  water  bucket  with  a 
cup;  and  in  their  pools  are  twelve  or  fifteen-inch 
fish.  I  do  not  yet  quite  understand  how  they  turn 
around. 

Californians  are  sometimes  very  fond  of  the  lake 
fishing.  Certainly  the  mountain  lakes  are  full  of 
trout,  when  they  contain  any  at  all.  Toward  even 
ing  the  entire  surface  of  the  water,  in  all  directions, 
near  and  far,  is  ringed  by  the  slowly  widening  circles 
of  fish  rising.  One  can  cast  from  the  bank  into 
almost  any  depth  of  water  and  get  from  one  to  three 
strikes  at  almost  every  cast.  Three  of  us  caught  — 
and  put  back  —  one  hundred  and  sixty-eight  trout 
from  eight  to  fifteen  inches  in  about  an  hour  and  a 
half.  Nearly  two  a  minute! 

And  the  supply  seems  inexhaustible.  Certain 
lakes,  like  those  at  Mammoth  Pass,  happen  to  be  on 
wagon  roads.  When  the  hot  weather  strikes  home, 
the  plains  people  come  up  into  the  hills.  They 
rumble  along  in  all  sorts  of  vehicles  —  butcher  carts, 

213 


THE  CABIN 

farm  wagons,  surreys,  buggies,  two-wheel  carts, 
grocers'  delivery  wagons  —  anything  that  may  be 
handy.  They  do  not  get  very  far,  of  course,  but 
they  climb  up  to  the  pines  and  the  cooler  air.  They 
are  an  engaging  lot,  replete  with  babies,  phono 
graphs,  farm  horses,  fire-arms,  banjos,  accordions, 
and  Japanese  lanterns.  When  they  settle  down, 
they  are  planted  for  the  summer.  Their  chief  de 
light  is  to  go  fishing. 

As  I  said,  Mammoth  is  accessible.  Its  half- 
dozen  lakes  are  fished  vigorously  every  afternoon  of 
the  season  by  a  miscellaneous  and  bloodthirsty 
horde  in  waders,  bare  legs,  canvas  boats,  dugouts, 
and  impromptu  rafts.  Yet  the  fishing  is  notable. 
They  bite  like  bulldogs,  and  are  carried  to  camp  by  the 
hundreds.  Possibly  they  naturally  increase  too  rapidly 
for  their  own  good,  and  this  thinning  out  is  salutary. 

Sad  to  say,  as  a  general  rule,  the  trout  to  be  caught 
in  the  lakes  are  not  particularly  attractive  to  the 
experienced  angler.  They  sometimes  run  very  big 
—  as  high  as  seven  or  eight  pounds.  But  they  are 
born  tired.  Two  or  three  flops  fulfil  all  fish  con 
ventions  as  to  objecting.  Then  in  they  come  like 
so  many  suckers.  Also,  their  flesh  is  not  so  hard 
and  sweet  as  that  of  their  hard-fighting  brethren  of 
the  streams.  They  make  a  very  good  amusement 
for  the  plains  campers  who  want  fish,  and  lots  of 

214 


TROUT 

'em.     Providence  must  have  invented  them  for  that 
express  purpose. 

Of  course  this  rule  has  exceptions  —  everything  has 
exceptions  when  it  is  a  question  of  fish  and  fishing. 
There  are  cold-water  lakes  with  big  outlets  where  the 
fish  are  game  and  hard.  The  lake  trout  caught 
in  such  places  as  Convict  Lake,  Tahoe,  and  Klamath 
are  said  to  be  a  fine  fish.  You  catch  them  with  a 
heavily  weighted  trolling  line,  and  I  never  did  like 
dredging.  As  a  general  rule  the  real  angler  will 
find  better  sport  in  the  streams.  Given  a  boiling 
torrent  going  down  a  twenty-per-cent.  grade,  a  four- 
pound  trout,  a  six-ounce  rod,  and  a  thousand  tons 
or  so  of  rounded  slippery  boulders,  and  the  most 
exacting  sportsman  should  be  satisfied.  It  is  no 
uncommon  thing  to  follow  a  big  trout  a  half-mile 
downstream  —  when  you  can.  When  you  cannot 
you  follow  him  as  far  as  you  can.  Then  if  he  de 
clines  to  stop,  you  must  reluctantly  lower  your  tip. 
Occasionally  you  can  toss  your  rod  to  a  companion 
and  let  him  follow  to  his  limits.  In  the  mean  time 
you  have  raced  below  to  be  ready  to  receive  it  in  turn. 
This  has  been  done.  Billy  once  hooked  a  big  trout 
that  passed  thus  through  four  hands.  That  rod  was 
passed,  tossed,  even  thrown  from  crag  to  crag,  until 
Billy  was  able  to  reclaim  it  at  a  stretch  of  slack  water, 
and  land  her  fish. 

215 


THE  CABIN 

The  best  flies  in  this  country  are  the  Royal  Coach 
man,  the  Queen  of  the  Waters,  Brown  Hackle, 
Montreal,  Professor,  and  Rube  Wood,  about  in  the 
order  named.  Furthermore,  these  are  unsophis 
ticated  fish,  and  they  do  not  give  a  hang  for  delicate 
gradations  of  hue.  If  they  will  not  rise  to  any  of 
the  above,  they  will  not  rise  at  all.  I  should  never 
carry  any  others  were  I  to  outfit  my  flybook  especially 
for  this  country.  This,  in  view  of  the  many  varieties 
affected  by  the  Eastern  fisherman,  sounds  like  pis 
catorial  heresy;  but  I  believe  it  to  be  a  fact.  Indeed, 
as  a  strictly  practical  matter,  one  might  go  even 
further.  Tie  in  a  Royal  Coachman  and  a  Brown 
Hackle.  If  you  cannot  catch  them  on  one  or  the 
other  of  those  two  flies,  the  chances  are  strong  that 
the  trout  are  not  hungry  enough  to  rise  in  paying 
numbers  to  any  of  the  others. 

For  I  hope  I  have  not  unintentionally  conveyed 
the  idea  that  fishing  is  always  good.  That  is  no 
more  true  here  than  it  was  in  the  Garden  of  Eden. 
A  virgin  stream  is  sometimes  very  poor  fishing  in 
deed.  For  long  stretches  the  conditions  of  the  water 
will  be  such  that  the  pickings  will  be  very  slim. 
"One  once  in  a  great  while"  happens  here  as  else 
where.  And  probably  here  more  than  elsewhere, 
the  fishing  hours  are  apt  to  be  restricted.  A  great 
many  streams  are  fishable  in  full  sunlight,  but  often 

216 


TROUT 

the  trout  will  rarely  rise  except  in  shadow  —  and 
there  are  never  friendly  clouds  in  a  California  summer 
sky.  You  must  wait  until  the  sun  has  dropped  be 
hind  the  mountain.  Luckily  the  mountains  are 
high.  The  twilight  is  no  good  at  all.  Just  when 
the  Eastern  fisherman's  experience  would  lead  him 
to  believe  his  best  sport  was  about  to  commence, 
the  game  is  called  on  account  of  darkness!  I  do 
not  know  why  this  is;  but  nine  times  out  of  ten  it 
comes  true.  You  might  as  well  unjoint  your  rod 
and  get  back  to  camp  while  you  can  see  the  way 
comfortably. 

But  when  they  do  rise,  they  are  wonderful !  There 
are  no  dull  moments.  And  here  as  in  the  East  all 
the  blanks  are  forgotten.  Fisherman's  luck!  Here's 
the  best  of  it  to  you ! 


FLAPJACK 


of. 


XVIII 
FLAPJACK 

FLAPJACK,  as  you    may  have   gathered,  is  a 
mule.     But  in  order  to  get  a  good  notion  of 
him  you  must  try  to  imagine  a  pretty  mule.     That  is 
of  course  difficult;  but  it  must  be  done. 

For  Flapjack  is  of  jet  and  shiny  black,  save  when 
he  is  cold.  Then  his  fur  ruffles  up  and  he  resembles 
a  plush-covered  mule  with  very  dark  shadows  where 
the  nap  runs  the  wrong  way.  He  is  small  —  not 
over  thirteen-two  —  and  is  built  like  a  deer,  with 
clean  slender  legs,  a  straight  back,  deep  shoulders, 
proud  neck,  and  a  wide  forehead  in  which  he  stows 
his  generous  supply  of  brains.  Of  course,  his  ears 
are  long,  but  they  are  covered  with  a  soft  black  fuzz, 
and  they  are  wonderfully  expressive.  If  Flapjack 
is  particularly  pleased,  they  are  held  pointing  slightly 
back  and  rigidly  parallel.  This  also  means  con 
scious  virtue.  If  he  is  contentedly  walking  along 
the  trail  with  nothing  much  on  his  mind,  those  ears 
are  hung  on  smooth-working  ball  bearings,  and 
swing  back  and  forth  rythmically  with  every  step. 

221 


THE  CABIN 

Now  it  is  the  right  ear  that  thus  keeps  time;  then 
the  left;  finally  the  two  together.  Biff!  both  point 
instantaneously  ahead,  and  you  know  Flapjack's 
interest  has  been  struck.  Nothing  could  be  more 
inquiring  or  more  astonished  or  more  startled,  as 
the  case  may  be,  than  those  forward  ears.  They 
snap  into  position  almost  with  a  click,  like  the  cock 
ing  of  a  revolver. 

Flapjack  moves  easily  and  lightly,  and  his  head 
is  always  high  and  his  eye  roving.  Never  does  he 
slouch  along  the  trail  half  asleep.  Even  when  he 
takes  his  earned  rest,  he  never  droops  all  over,  as  do 
the  other  animals.  One  feels  his  alertness,  the 
perfect  tension  of  his  smooth  muscles  even  in  repose. 
He  lifts  his  feet  high  and  clean,  with  a  little  pause 
at  the  top  of  each  step  and  a  swift  down-thrust, 
in  the  manner  of  wild  animals  not  too  much  startled. 
On  a  rough  and  dangerous  trail  he  handles  each 
hoof  separately,  and  knows  where  each  is  to  go 
surely  and  accurately  —  a  horse  generally  tries  to 
place  his  front  feet  and  lets  the  hind  legs  follow  as 
they  may.  I  have  never  seen  Flapjack  down  but 
once,  and  that  was  on  the  slippery  glacier.  Never 
have  I  seen  him  stumble. 

So  much  for  the  outer  mule.  All  that  is  satis 
factory,  of  course.  When  Flapjack  has  on  his  full 
regalia  he  is  a  proud-looking  little  animal.  His 

222 


FLAPJACK 

halter,  bell-collar  and  breasting  are  studded  with 
bright  knobs;  his  bronze  bell,  sweet-toned  and  clear, 
tinkles  merrily;  his  pack  rig  is  of  black  leather,  lined 
generously  with  yellow  sheep's  wool;  the  kyacks 
are  of  rawhide  with  the  hair  on;  the  tarpaulin  is 
khaki-coloured  instead  of  dirty  white.  But  the  most 
satisfactory  and  remarkable  thing  about  Flapjack 
is  his  intelligence  and  his  disposition. 

Of  course  he  is  thoroughly  familiar  with  all  the 
details  of  his  business  in  life:  if  he  were  not,  he  would 
not  be  worthy  of  consideration.  I  can  catch  him 
easily,  not  after  the  fashion  of  a  horse  to  which  one 
walks  as  to  a  rooted  stump,  but  after  a  manner  of 
Flapjack's  own.  When  I  appear  in  the  meadow 
with  a  rope  in  my  hand,  he  first  trots  in  his  high- 
stepping  way  directly  toward  me,  stops,  shakes  his 
head,  runs  around  me  in  a  half-circle  and  stops 
again,  his  nostrils  expanded,  his  head  high,  showing 
every  indication  of  a  full  intention  to  be  a  wild,  bad 
mule.  But  at  my  first  step  in  his  direction  he  walks 
directly  to  me  and  halts.  This  is  his  almost  in 
variable  procedure. 

From  the  moment  I  bring  him  near  his  pack- 
saddle  until  I  unsnap  his  lead  rope,  he  never  moves 
a  muscle.  I  can  throw  bags,  blankets,  canvases, 
rattling  hardware,  ropes,  anything  and  everything 
all  over,  around,  and  at  him  —  he  will  not  so  much  as 

223 


THE  CABIN 

bat  an  eye  or  wave  an  ear.  I  can  even  drag  ropes 
around  his  hind  legs  without  his  jumping  forward. 
And,  mind  you,  he  is  as  full  of  ginger  as  a  cookie. 
When  the  packing  is  pronounced  completed,  he 
nibbles  about  in  the  immediate  vicinity  until  I 
mount.  Then  he  falls  dutifully  in  behind,  and 
during  all  the  rest  of  the  day  he  needs  no  more  atten 
tion  to  keep  him  with  us  than  does  my  saddle  horse's 
own  tail.  Plenty  of  pack  animals  will  keep  in  line 
without  leading  if  somebody  is  ahead  and  behind 
them.  A  great  many  will  follow  the  saddle  horses, 
provided  there  are  no  other  pack-horses  with  whom 
to  play  truant.  Flapjack  will  follow  anyway.  No 
matter  how  many  animals  we  are  driving  or  how 
much  trouble  they  give  us,  Flapjack  comes  along. 
He  leaves  his  home  unhesitatingly;  he  leaves  feed. 
I  have  ridden  in  the  pitch  dark  without  seeing  the 
little  mule  all  night,  sure  that  daylight  would  dis 
close  him  teetering  along  close  behind.  These 
virtues  —  to  stand  well  when  packed,  and  to  follow 
without  fail  —  are  two-thirds  of  a  pack-horse's 
accomplishments. 

The  third  is  to  take  care  of  the  burden,  not  to 
scrape  it  against  trees  or  under  limbs,  to  understand 
that  extremely  narrow  or  extremely  low  places  are 
not  to  be  attempted,  to  be  surefooted,  and  not  to  get 
rattled  in  bad  places.  This  virtue,  or  conglomerate 

224 


FLAPJACK 

of  virtues,  is  more  common,  and  Flapjack  possesses 
it  in  full  measure. 

But  Flapjack,  furthermore,  is  gentle  and  friendly 
as  a  dog.  He  has  never  been  struck  in  his  life,  and 
he  does  not  know  what  it  is  to  be  afraid  of  those  with 
whom  he  is  familiar.  One  can  pull  his  tail,  or  rub 
his  ear,  or  crawl  around  under  him  for  the  purpose 
of  making  some  adjustment  with  absolute  confidence. 
When  we  walk  through  the  meadow  Flapjack  fairly 
mobs  us.  He  follows  close  on  our  heels,  he  nuzzles 
at  our  backs,  every  once  in  a  while  he  circles  to  the 
front  and  stops  us.  Often  on  trail  I  have  had  him 
catch  up  and  lay  his  Assyrian  nose  alongside  my 
thigh.  Then  I  would  rub  him  between  the  eyes  or 
pat  his  ears,  and  he  would  fall  back  contented. 

I  am  about  to  relate  an  example  of  his  desire  for 
human  company  which  may  land  me  with  the  nature- 
fakers.  If  I  were  to  make  Flapjack  symbolic  of  all 
mules,  and  spell  his  name  Obrayeesee,  and  indulge 
in  many  capital  letters,  I  should  certainly  anticipate 
that  fate.  However,  I  must  risk  it. 

Flapjack,  be  it  premised  before  the  tale  begins, 
looks  on  fences,  not  as  physical  hindrances  to  free 
dom,  but  as  gentle  hints.  His  masters  place  those 
easily  jumped  structures  as  a  species  of  chalk  marks 
to  indicate  the  bounds  beyond  which  they  wish 
Flapjack  would  not  stray.  As  an  honourable  and 

22$ 


THE  CABIN 

courteous  mule,  he  respects  those  wishes.  But  this 
does  not  prevent  his  hopping  out  when  he  feels  like 
it,  for  his  slender  legs  are  composed  exclusively  of 
watch  springs.  In  justice  it  must  be  further  stated 
that  he  invariably  hops  in  again. 

One  afternoon  Billy  and  I  walked  over  to  our 
Supervisor's,  leaving  two  horses  and  the  mule  in 
the  meadow.  Once  there,  we  decided  to  stay  over 
night  and  return  home  the  next  day,  a  pleasant  plan 
which  we  carried  out.  About  midnight  a  slight 
shower  of  rain  fell.  On  our  way  back,  near  the  top 
of  the  hill,  and  a  half-mile  or  so  from  the  Super 
visor's,  we  came  on  a  place  where  a  shod  mule  had 
stamped  for  some  moments  in  the  dirt  road.  Tracks 
of  the  animal  walking  led  to  this  spot;  tracks  of  the 
animal  running  led  back  from  it.  These  marks 
had  been  made  since  the  shower,  and  hence  after 
midnight. 

The  tracks  led  in  our  direction,  turned  off  at  our 
trail,  led  to  our  fence,  and  hopped  over.  There 
was  Flapjack  feeding  in  company  with  the  two 
horses.  Some  time  after  midnight  —  and  therefore 
nine  or  ten  hours  after  we  had  left  home  —  he  had 
become  worried  over  us,  had  jumped  the  fence, 
followed  our  trail  nearly  to  the  Supervisor's,  been 
seized  with  a  panic  either  over  being  alone  or  at 
something,  and  returned  to  his  friends  the  horses. 

226 


FLAPJACK 

Flapjack  can  follow  a  trail  by  scent.  What  other 
solution  can  you  suggest  ?  If  we  had  taken  the 
horses  with  us,  the  affair  would  have  been  very 
commonplace,  for  all  members  of  the  equine  race 
detest  solitude.  But  he  left  his  customary  com 
panions  to  follow  us  up. 

When  I  am  working  around  the  meadow  I  some 
times  have  hardly  room  to  swing  my  axe  or  hammer. 
The  little  mule  wants  to  smell  of  everything  as  it 
is  constructed.  When  I  used  to  do  laundry  near 
the  fence,  his  soft  black-and-gray  muzzle  was  fairly 
in  the  tub.  The  other  day  I  added  a  rail  to  the  top 
of  the  fence.  When  Flapjack  came  up  from  the 
foot  of  the  meadow  he  noticed  the  change  at  once, 
and  smelled  that  improvement  over  from  one  end  to 
the  other.  None  of  the  horses  paid  any  attention 
to  it. 

But  though  he  is  thus  gentle  and  friendly,  you 
must  not  get  away  with  the  idea  that  he  is  like  most 
equine  pets,  spoiled,  cross,  lazy,  pampered,  and  full 
of  egotistical  and  selfish  little  tricks.  No  stranger 
can  get  near  him.  He  will  circle  about  the  intruder 
with  loud  snorts  of  disdain. 

"One  thing,"  said  California  John  after  a  few 
moments'  experience.  "  There  ain't  no  road  agent 
goin'  to  get  hold  of  your  pack,  unless  they  shoot 
that  mule." 

227 


THE  CABIN 

So  independent,  free,  graceful,  and  spirited  is 
the  little  animal  that  he  has  always  seemed  to  me  less 
a  domestic  animal  trained  and  constrained  to  ser 
vice,  as  some  wild  creature  that  condescends  through 
a  great  gentleness.  He  performs  his  task  because 
he  likes  it.  No  one  who  has  watched  Flapjack  on 
the  trail  could  doubt  it.  In  our  local  rides  he  always 
accompanies  us,  just  as  the  dogs  do,  but  without 
accoutrements,  of  course.  He  does  not  care  nearly 
so  much  to  go  unburdened.  When  he  finds  his 
pack-saddle  is  to  be  used,  he  is  delighted,  and  shows 
it  plainly.  Bullet,  my  veteran  mountain  horse,  is 
the  same  way.  At  home  he  gets  grain  and  hay  and 
luxurious  living  and  gallops  on  the  beach.  Camping 
he  has  to  rustle  for  grass,  and  the  labour  is  hard. 
Yet  he  much  prefers  camping.  This  is  conclusively 
proved  by  his  delight  when  I  get  out  a  pack-saddle. 
He  whickers  and  capers  around  the  corral,  and 
shakes  his  head  with  joy.  Not  that  he  expects  to 
carry  the  pack-saddle  —  that  is  beneath  Bullet's 
dignity  —  but  he  knows  that  pack-saddles  mean 
trips  into  the  open. 

It  is  a  promotion  to  become  a  saddle  animal. 
That  I  have  observed  again  and  again.  Old  Me 
thuselah,  who  had  been  a  saddle  animal  when  he  was 
young,  used  to  cheer  up  and  put  on  a  heap  of  style 
when  I  would  ride  him  over  to  the  mill  occasionally. 

228 


FLAPJACK 

One  day  I  decided  to  break  Flapjack  as  a  saddler  — 
he  is  just  the  right  size  for  Billy.  We  saddled  him 
up,  put  on  a  war  halter,  and  stood  by  for  trouble. 
Flapjack  is  not  mean,  but  any  animal  will  tear 
around  a  little  the  first  time  a  man  climbs  on  his 
back.  So  I  swung  aboard  carefully.  As  soon  as  I 
was  in  the  saddle  Flapjack  marched  off,  tail  up,  ears 
rigidly  parallel,  head  aloft.  He  walked  straight 
ahead  until  I  hauled  him  around  to  a  new  direction: 
then  straight  ahead  again.  The  spectators  shouted 
with  delight  over  his  air  of  swollen  pride.  That 
was  all  the  breaking  Flapjack  ever  got  —  or  needed. 

Flapjack  is  fond  of  scenery,  or  at  least  it  interests 
him  in  some  way.  Whenever  our  way  leads  to  the 
brink  of  one  of  the  huge  box  canons,  or  out  on  a 
shoulder  of  the  mountain  so  that  one  can  see  as 
over  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth,  Flapjack  never  fails 
to  march  to  the  farthest  overhanging  point.  There 
he  stands  and  looks,  right,  left,  ahead,  and  down, 
for  as  long  as  we  will  wait  for  him.  I  do  not  pretend 
to  state  the  basis  of  his  interest,  but  the  facts  are  as 
[  tell  you.  Figure  it  out  to  suit  yourself. 

When  we  get  in  at  night,  first  of  all  Flapjack  in 
dulges  in  a  dusty  and  satisfying  roll.  The  horses 
Jo  likewise,  and  at  once  start  feeding,  for  the  day 
nas  been  long,  and  a  horse  hungers  even  more 
quickly  than  a  man. 

229 


THE  CABIN 

But  no  matter  how  tired  and  hollow  he  may  be, 
Flapjack  first  of  all  makes  a  complete  circuit  of  the 
meadow.  Then  he  circles  it  back  in  the  woods. 
Having  thus  assured  himself  that  nothing  is  going 
to  catch  him  unaware,  he  returns  and  begins  his 
meal.  This  trait  is  to  me  another  interesting  rem 
nant  of  the  wild-animal  instinct  that  seems  so  strong 
in  this  particular  mule. 

In  the  course  of  the  day's  journey  Flapjack  con 
ceives  his  place  to  be  number  two  in  the  order  of 
march.  Of  course  his  master  leads,  but  he  objects 
strongly  even  to  other  humans  getting  that  coveted 
second  place.  To  gain  it  he  fights  and  schemes. 
Some  poor  weak-spirited  pack-horses  are  easy.  A 
nip,  a  snarl  of  the  white  teeth,  a  laying  back  of  the 
long  ears  —  that  poor  trash  is  shown  its  place.  But 
saddle  horses  are  haughty  animals,  and  their  riders 
object  to  dust.  Flapjack  must  resort  to  strategy. 
He  makes  long  detours  through  the  brush  or  trees 
in  order  to  pop  in  when  chance  offers  him  a  gap. 
He  takes  short  cuts  for  the  same  purpose.  When 
he  has  apparently  given  up  the  struggle  and  seems 
to  be  reconciled  to  his  fate,  he  is  nevertheless  alert 
for  the  smallest  chance  to  move  up  one.  And  when 
he  has  succeeded  he  snuggles  into  his  place  with  so 
comical  an  air  of  content  that  his  victim,  if  a  man, 
generally  laughs  good-naturedly  and  concedes  the 

230 


FLAPJACK 

point.  As  for  another  horse,  I'd  like  to  see  him 
get  the  tip  of  a  nose  between  Flapjack  and  the 
leading  animal. 

Demijohn  is  Flapjack's  intimate  friend.  On  the 
trail  that  haughty  and  bored  animal  leads  the  way 
for  the  little  mule.  In  pasture  he  tells  where  to  go 
and  when  to  go  there.  Flapjack  knows  more  now, 
in  his  youth,  than  Demijohn  will  ever  guess  at. 
Nevertheless,  he  obeys  the  horse  blindly,  and  defers 
to  him,  and  looks  up  to  him,  and  worships  him. 
Never  but  once  has  he  disputed  authority.  On 
that  occasion  I  saw  him  deliver  the  only  two  kicks 
he  ever  accomplished.  Previous  to  the  incident  I 
had  come  to  imagine  that  Flapjack  had  not  a  kick 
in  him. 

Naturally  when  any  tidbit,  such  as  a  handful  of 
grain,  is  fed  the  two  together,  they  eat  a  moment  or 
so  in  company,  then  Demijohn  lays  back  his  ears 
lazily,  and  Flapjack  moves  aside  in  all  meekness, 
without  objection,  humbly,  as  a  disciple  from  his 
master. 

But  of  one  thing  has  Flapjack  proved  inordinately 
fond.  On  a  great  occasion  we  received  a  sack  of 
sweet  corn  on  the  ear.  It  had  been  passed  along 
in  the  kind-hearted  mountain  fashion,  and  by  the 
time  it  reached  us  had  travelled  through  many  hands 
and  by  many  methods.  When  we  had  eaten  thereof 

231 


THE  CABIN 

with  greater  joy  than  any  but  those  who  know  only 
the  canned  variety  can  realize,  we  dumped  the  shucks 
and  cobs  into  a  box  and  carried  them  out  to  the 
horses.  Whiskeyjack  was  absent  at  the  time,  so 
only  Demi  and  Flapjack  were  there  to  partake. 
Flapjack  was  delighted.  This  beat  barley,  oats, 
hay,  carrots,  sugar.  And  when,  after  a  mouthful 
or  so,  Demijohn  laid  his  ears  back  sulkily,  and 
nipped  at  the  mule  as  a  gentle  hint,  Flapjack  de 
liberately  turned  around  and  kicked  him  twice. 
The  horse  was  so  astounded  that  he  retired  down 
the  meadow  in  a  sulk,  leaving  Flapjack  to  finish 
the  corn  alone! 

I  have  had  some  comical  experiences  with  Flap 
jack.  Op  one  occasion  it  became  necessary  to  cross 
a  river  flowing  from  a  lake.  It  was  a  deep  and  rather 
wide  river,  but  slow.  The  obvious  thing  to  do  was 
to  unpack,  carry  the  stuff  over  in  front  of  my  saddle, 
and  swim  the  mule  unburdened.  But  that  necessi 
tated  many  trips,  it  was  late,  and  I  was  tired.  I 
hitched  my  riata  around  Flapjack's  neck,  and  started 
in.  Immediately  the  kyacks  filled.  Their  weight 
sunk  the  mule.  When  he  hit  bottom  I  heaved.  He 
surged  up  and  forward,  blew  the  water  from  his 
nostrils  —  and  promptly  sank  again.  Once  more 
I  heaved.  We  repeated  the  process.  Thus,  in  long 
watery  bounds  we  made  the  passage,  poor  old  Flap- 

232 


FLAPJACK 

jack  alternating  between  the  bottom  and  the  top. 
Of  course  Demijohn  swam  easily  enough  with 
only  my  own  weight  atop.  When  we  scrambled 
out  the  other  bank  Flapjack  snorted  again  and  again 
with  indignation  and  disgust. 

About  once  a  week  or  so,  when  we  are  at  the 
Cabin,  we  saddle  up  and  ride  to  the  mill  for  mail 
and  supplies.  Flapjack  transports  the  latter.  The 
trip  is  a  staid,  sober,  and  accustomed  one.  We  never 
bother  to  pack  very  securely.  But  one  day,  on 
returning  laden  with  potatoes,  we  found  cattle  near 
our  place.  Without  thinking  of  Flapjack  we  set 
about  driving  them  out.  This  necessitated  fast 
riding  through  the  timber;  sudden  stops,  turns  and 
jumps;  shouts;  the  excited  barking  of  the  dogs;  and 
the  crashing  flight  of  the  half-wild  cattle.  Flapjack, 
left  alone  in  the  middle  of  the  road,  looked  about  him 
in  vast  astonishment.*  Then  all  at  once  down 
went  his  head,  up  went  his  tail,  and  off  he  sailed, 
bucking  at  every  jump.  Father  laughs  every  time 
he  tells  of  that  bombardment  of  potatoes.  Here, 
there  and  everywhere  he  went,  until  the  excited 
jangling  of  the  little  bell  died  in  the  distance.  And 
then  after  a  while,  instead  of  going  home,  back  he 
trotted  high-stepping  as  usual,  and  lined  up  at  our 
sides  with  an  air  that  plainly  said : 

*My  father  was  eye-witness  of  the  performance. 

233 


THE  CABIN 

"  Well,  we  did  have  a  high  old  time,  didn't  we  ? " 
I  believe  he  thought  we  were  all  out  for  a  grand 
lark,  and  wanted  to  get  in  the  game;  for  he  was  not 
in  the  least  frightened. 

I  have  known  Flapjack  four  years  —  since  he 
was  a  three-year-old  —  and  I  have  not  a  single  fault 
to  find  with  him  nor  a  criticism  to  make  of  him.  I 
do  not  know  anybody  else  of  whom  unqualifiedly 
I  can  say  that.  That  is  why  he  has  a  chapter  all 
to  himself. 


254 


THE  ETHICAL  CODE  OF 
CALIFORNIA  JOHN 


XIX 

THE  ETHICAL  CODE  OF 
CALIFORNIA  JOHN 

/CALIFORNIA  JOHN  is  an  individual  more  or 
\^  less  travelled.  He  has  been  to  various  places 
of  which  perhaps  you  have  never  heard;  such  as 
Honey  Lake,  and  Hoopa  Valley,  and  the  country 
of  the  Siskiyou.  To  be  sure  he  has  never  visited 
Paris,  London,  or  Berlin,  as  we  have;  but  then,  he 
has  at  least  heard  of  them,  and  that  is  where  he  is 
ahead  of  us.  His  wanderings  began  in  the  early 
days  when  the  foothill  country  was  full  of  placer 
gold.  When  so  minded  he  can  tell  of  queer  things. 
For  instance,  there  is  a  canon  of  the  Chiricahuas 
in  Arizona,  happily  misnamed  Paradise  Valley, 
where  a  gang  of  Mexican  cattle-rustlers  abode  —  for 
a  while.  Then  the  rustling  abruptly  ceased.  Para 
dise  Valley  became  a  peaceful  range  camp,  occupied 
but  twice  a  year  at  the  time  of  the  roundups. 

"And  every  cow-puncher  there  has  the  top  part 
of  a  skull  for  a  washbowl,"  says  California  John. 

With  it  all  he  still  loves  the  Sierras  the  best,  and 

237 


THE  CABIN 

has  homed  to  them  in  his  approaching  age.  Never 
theless  the  single  thing  that  impressed  him  most  was 
the  Grand  Canon  of  the  Colorado. 

"That  place,"  said  he  to  us  one  day,  "is  self- 
actin'l  All  this,"  he  waved  his  hand  abroad,  "has 
to  be  taken  care  of  or  it  gets  ruined  by  somebody. 
That's  what  we  rangers  are  tryin'  to  do.  But  the 
Grand  Canon  takes  care  of  herself."  He  slid  from 
his  saddle  and  squatted  on  his  heels  as  was  invaria 
bly  his  habit  when  really  earnest  talk  was  forward. 
"My  idee  is  about  like  this,"  said  he:  "I  believe 
the  Lord  made  that  place  just  for  Himself.  All  the 
rest  of  the  earth  He  gave  to  mankind.  'Go  to  it,' 
says  He.  '  Do  what  you  want.  Go  the  limit.  Cut 
down  the  trees,  and  dam  up  the  rivers,  and  paint 
advertising  signs  on  and  over  everythin'  you  can 
stick  a  brush  to.  I  ain't  in  favour  of  these  proceed 
ings:  but  it's  up  to  you.'  And  I  reckon  we've  done 
it  —  Injins,  buffalo,  pine  woods,  Niagara  Falls  — 
all  the  rest  of  it.  But  the  Grand  Canon  the  Lord 
made  for  Himself.  There  ain't  no  water,  there 
ain't  no  ways  of  gettin'  around,  there  ain't  no  pos 
sible  way  of  paintin'  a  sign  you  could  make  out  with 
the  Lick  telescope.  They  can't  dynamite  it  for 
stone,  or  plant  parks  in  it,  or  build  things  in  it." 

"  They've  got  a  big  modern  hotel  on  the  Rirn 
now,"  I  suggested. 

238 


THE  ETHICAL  CODE 

"Oh,  yes,"  he  waved  that  lauded  structure  aside. 
"They  can  put  up  things,  of  course.  But  a  full- 
grown  World's  Fair  goin'  full  blast  with  the  blower 
on  you  wouldn't  even  see  across  that  Canon.  That 
little  crack  will  look  just  the  same  as  it  does  to-day 
a  thousand  years  from  now,  when  our  descendants 
are  wearin'  sky-blue  pants  with  ruffles  on  'em  and 
otherwise  attractin'  horrified  attention  from  the 
angels." 

We  laughed  together  over  this,  for  California 
John  never  takes  his  extravagances  seriously.  Then 
abruptly  he  became  solemn. 

"  Son,"  said  he,"  the  gold  light  of  evening  on  these 
mountains  is  a  mighty  fine  thing,  but  if  you  don't 
believe  all  I've  been  sayin'  you  ought  to  see  the 
Canon  at  sunset." 

"I've  seen  it,"  said  I. 

"You  remember  how  she  changes,  then,  slow 
and  solemn,  like  the  shift  of  scenes  in  a  theatre. 
Only  there  ain't  no  hurry  about  it.  He  don't  care 
whether  folks  has  to  catch  a  train,  or  it's  gettin' 
chilly  out  there  on  the  Rim,  or  dinner  is  ready. 
And  do  you  recollect  how  the  peaks  come  out  from 
the  other  Canon  wall,  and  draw  back  again,  one 
by  one  ?  It's  just  as  if  they  was  answering  roll-call. 
And  all  the  colours  in  the  world  come  out  to  answer 
roll-call  too,  and  wait  a  minute,  and  then  melt  back 

239 


THE  CABIN 

again.  The  Lord  has  built  Him  a  fine  place;  and 
He's  fixed  it  so  we  can't  never  bother  it.  I  think 
it's  mighty  good  of  Him  to  let  us  come  and  look  at 


it." 


"Why  didn't  you  stay  there,"  I  asked,  "if  you  like 
it  so  well?" 

"It  takes  a  mighty  good  man  or  a  mighty  dumb 
fool  to  live  by  the  Canon  always.  It's  like  sheep 
that  way.  It  takes  apostles  or  Basques  to  get 
along." 

"You  seem  to  have  a  pretty  good  streak  of  religion 
in  you,"  I  remarked  in  all  sincerity. 

"Me!"  cried  California  John  in  vast  astonish 
ment.  Then  he  chuckled.  "You  may  not  believe 
it,  but  I  did  get  religion  once.  It  didn't  take, 
though." 

He  came  to  a  dead  stop,  his  eyes  full  of  reminis 
cence.  I  offered  him  a  square  of  sulphur  matches, 
whereupon  he  quite  mechanically  rolled  himself  a 
Durham  cigarette.  After  the  first  puff,  he  went  on. 

"  It  was  'way  up  in  the  Stanislaus  country  at  the 
time  everybody  was  looking  for  gold.  I  was  a  young 
feller  then,  and  hadn't  learned  much  sense.  My 
mother  was  alive  then,  and  my  two  sisters,  and 
they  put  in  most  of  their  time  worryin'  about  how 
my  soul  was  comin'  out.  That  didn't  even  get  to 

me;  but  one  day  along  come  a  girl " 

240 


THE  ETHICAL  CODE 

He  paused  and  his  eye  grew  vacant. 

"I've  plumb  forgot  her  name!"  he  exclaimed, 
regretfully,  after  a  moment.  "Anyway,  she  was 
number  one  on  my  list.  Nothing  doing.  She  was 
religious  from  soda  to  hock,  and  she  didn't  look 
with  no  favour  on  my  efforts  toward  polishin'  up 
the  flames  of  hell. 

"Then  one  of  these  yere  shoutin'  evangelists  came 
to  camp.  They  don't  have  many  of  'em  these  days 
—  crazy,  long-legged  cusses,  with  long  black  clothes, 
plug  hats,  and  language  enough  to  stock  a  hundred 
sheep  camps  and  a  water-tank.  My  girl  went  in 
strong  on  the  revival  he  started.  First  thing  I  knew 
about  it  was  a  rise  in  the  temperature,  and  sweet 
smiles,  and  other  encouragin'  signs.  For  a  minute 
I  thought  I  was  makin'  headway.  Then  she  sprung 
revival  on  me,  and  I  see  at  once  it  was  just  to  get  me 
to  go. 

"I  went.  The  show  didn't  hit  me  very  strong 
until  along  toward  the  middle.  Then  a  bright  idea 
come  to  me.  All  at  once  up  I  got,  sailed  down  the 
aisle,  and  flopped  into  the  bench  with  the  rest  of 
the  saved." 

The  Ranger  turned  on  me  a  humorously  mis 
chievous  eye. 

"Well,  I  tell  you  there  was  a  sensation!  Worst 
sinner  in  the  state  saved!  I  wrastled  and  had  the 

241 


THE  CABIN 

proper  allowance  of  duck  fits,  same  as  I'd  seen  the 
others  do.  Then  I  come  through.  Hallelujah! 
You  bet  you!  The  tinkling  cymbals  sounded  all 
right! 

"Well,  I  walked  home  with  Anna  Maria,  or 
whatever  her  name  was,  and  I  give  her  the  holy  kiss 
of  brotherhood.  But  when  I  sifted  into  the  house 
I  run  against  such  joy  over  the  brand  plucked  from 
the  burnin'  that  I  got  a  hard  jolt.  My  mother  and 
two  sisters  were  so  plumb  tickled  pink,  that  all  at 
once  it  come  to  me  what  I'd  overlooked  before.  I'd 
got  converted:  and  now  it  was  up  to  me  to  make 
good! 

"I  climbed  to  my  room  as  soon  as  I  could  get 
away. 

"Look  here/  says  I  to  me,  'you're  elected. 
What  are  you  goin'  to  do  about  it  ?  Are  you  goin' 
to  break  three  trustin'  lovin'  hearts  ?  Or  are  you 
goin'  to  quit  hosses,  drink,  poker,  and  everythin' 
that  enables  a  man  to  wobble  through  this  monot 
onous  existence  ? ' 

"You  see,  Anna  Maria  didn't  figure.  I  reckon 
the  holy  kiss  of  brotherhood  didn't  come  up  to 
anticipations. 

"It  was  a  hard  situation.  I  didn't  precisely  see 
me  with  a  long-term  halo;  but  still  I  wasn't  brute 
enough  to  kill  all  the  family  rejoicin'  with  a  club. 

242 


THE  ETHICAL  CODE 

Finally  I  got  out  a  pencil  and  paper  and  did  some 
close  figurin'.  In  fact  I  figured  all  night.  I  made 
out  a  schedule  for  what  you  might  call  a  gradual 
backslide.  In  a  week  I  was  to  let  out  a  little  in 
advertent  cuss.  In  two  weeks  I  was  due  to  play  a 
quiet  game  of  penny  ante.  And  so  on.  I  sort  of 
broke  the  news  to  them  gentle.  In  six  months  I 
was  due  for  a  real  hell  ripper.  You  bet  it  was  a  good 


one." 


He  squinted  sideways  at  the  sugar-pines. 

"It's  sometimes  kind  of  hard  to  live  up  to  these 
fellows,  too,"  he  exclaimed  irrelevantly.  "Speakin* 
of  that,  isn't  it  funny  how  a  young  fellow  has  trouble 
with  just  livin'  ?  He's  got  to  take  the  whole  thing 
apart,  and  see  how  it  goes.  When  he  gets  a  little 
age  into  him,  he  just  takes  things  as  they  come;  but 
when  he's  young  he's  got  to  know  all  the  whys. 
Now,  as  you  can  see,  I  never  was  much  on  religion, 
but  a  man's  got  to  have  something  or  other  to  go  by 
or  he  gets  as  shiftless  as  a  Digger." 

"A  code  of  ethics,"  I  suggested. 

"That's  it.  After  you  git  it  you  just  use  it  and 
forget  it,  same  as  fingers.  Never  notice  that  you  do 
have  fingers,  but  if  you'll  take  the  trouble  to  notice, 
you'll  see  that  a  baby  is  plumb  curious  about  them. 
But  while  you're  getting  it,  you  have  lots  of  troubles, 
and  make  heaps  of  experiments,  and  are  dead 

243 


THE  CABIN 

serious  —  and  ridiculous.  I  got  up  a  wonder  of  a 
code  of  ethics  once." 

"What  was  it?"  I  encouraged  him. 

"A  man  hates  to  tell  how  much  of  a  fool  he  was 
once,  even  when  he's  all  over  it,"  grinned  California 
John.  "For  a  general  star-spangled  idiocy  that 
nobody  had  ever  thought  of  before,  I  sure  took  all 
medals,  cash  prizes,  and  silver  casters." 

"Well,  only  the  sheep  follow  a  flock,"  I  said. 

"Them  —  and  sheepmen  and  buzzards,"  added 
California  John,  with  the  grim  distaste  of  the  cattle 
man  or  ranger  for  wool.  "  Well,  back  in  the  fifties 
I  made  me  up  an  account  between  me  and  the  Lord. 
Whenever  I  did  anything  I  ought  not  to,  I  charged 
myself  up  with  a  good  stiff  fine,  and  costs,  anywhere 
from  two  bits  to  five  dollars  dependin'  on  how  deep 
I'd  got  in.  Gamblin'  was  two  bits  a  chip;  drinks 
dos  reales  per,  and  so  on.  It  wasn't  only  what  you'd 
call  police-court  cases,  either.  I  rung  in  fightin', 
and  meanness,  and  lyin',  and  all  sorts  of  general 
cussedness.  It  was  surprisin'  what  it  came  to  by 
the  end  of  the  year.  I  wish  I  remembered  exactly, 
but  it  was  surprisin'." 

"What  did  you  do  with  the  money  ?"  I  asked  him. 

"That's  the  point.  I  used  to  figure  out  on  the 
other  side  where  the  Lord  hadn't  treated  me  square. 
I  figured  out  He  ought  to  send  the  rain,  and  dry 

244 


THE  ETHICAL  CODE 

calvin*  weather,  and  should  hold  His  hand  in  regard 
to  fire  and  flood.  I  charged  Him  with  them  things 
—  the  actual  damages,  you  sale."  California  John 
threw  back  his  head  and  laughed  with  whole-hearted 
enjoyment.  "  In  a  year  I  had  the  Lord  so  far  behind 
the  game  that  I  could  have  drunk  myself  to  death 
at  two  bits  fine  a  drink  and  then  been  certain  sure  of 
salvation  by  some  few  round  dollars.  So  I  give  it 
up,  and  come  to  the  conclusion  that  a  man  was 
supposed  to  be  decent  in  spite  of  tribulation." 

"What  did  you  find  the  best  practical  scheme 
finally  ? "  I  asked  as  he  rose  to  go. 

"Oh,  just  live  along,"  replied  California  John. 


245 


THE  SURVEYORS 


XX 

THE  SURVEYORS 

ONE  morning  in  the  early  fall  I  rode  out  along 
the  ridges,  over  ravines,  across  meadows,  until 
I  cut  the  old  shake  road  to  our  north.  There  I  dis 
mounted.  The  day  was  crisp  and  cool,  so  I  selected 
a  spot  full  in  the  sun  and  sat  down  to  wait.  After 
a  very  long  time,  a  toiling,  creaking  vehicle  crawled 
into  view.  From  it  descended  four  men.  After 
depositing  bed-rolls,  baggage,  and  instruments,  the 
vehicle  departed. 

The  first  of  the  strangers  was  a  man  just  past 
middle  age,  handsome  in  an  aquiline,  long  mous- 
tached  fashion,  a  trifle  inclined  to  an  office  shortness 
of  wind  at  first,  expressing  himself  with  a  Western 
heartiness  of  manner,  humorous,  absolutely  good- 
natured,  and  —  as  it  proved  —  game  as  a  badger. 
He  carried  a  bulky  wooden  case  which,  when  opened, 
proved  to  contain  a  transit.  This  he  fitted  to  its 
tripod  and  slanted  over  his  shoulder,  nor  thereafter 
did  he  ever  relinquish  it. 

His  chief  assistant  was  a  man  of  twenty-five  or 


THE  CABIN 

thirty,  alert  in  manner,  very  talkative,  moving  quick 
ly  and  nervously,  full  of  suggestion,  and  so  anxious 
to  do  things  right  that  he  generally  had  them  figured 
out  all  wrong  before  his  instructions  were  half  pro 
nounced.  A  running  fire  of  comment  on  whatever 
happened  to  be  doing  further  insulated  him  from 
outside  admonition.  He  wore  a  little  stifF-brimmed 
hat  at  an  angle;  and  from  his  general  manner  I 
imagine  in  his  proper  haunts  he  is  either  a  scrapper 
or  a  bluffer  —  probably  the  former.  With  it  all 
there  was  no  real  harm  in  him,  and  he  always  meant 
so  well  and  was  so  anxious  to  please  that  one  could 
not  remain  vexed.  He  was  as  irrepressible  as  a 
puppy  dog.  Inside  of  ten  minutes  he  was  calling 
me  "  my  boy.*'  Frozen  out  of  that,  he  went  back 
to  "Mr.  White,"  slipped  on  to  "White,"  graduated 
to  "Whitey,"  and  ended  at  "my  boy"  again;  exactly 
like  the  puppy  dog  discouraged  violently  from  lick 
ing  one's  face.  In  the  course  of  the  days  that  fol 
lowed,  I  could  almost  tell  the  time  of  the  clock  by 
the  manner  of  his  address.  "My  boy"  was  due 
about  eleven  o'clock,  and  again  about  four.  At 
those  hours  I  nearly  always  had  to  bestow  a  little 
attention  on  Tom  in  order  to  set  his  vocatives  aright. 
The  third  member  of  the  party  was  an  Indian 
named  Jack.  He  was  a  good  Indian.  His  handling 
of  an  axe  was  excellent,  and  he  could  take  a  line  and 

250 


THE  SURVEYORS 

lay  it  out  with  his  eye  almost  as  accurately  as  another 
could  have  done  so  with  a  pocket  compass.  It  is  a 
comparatively  simple  matter  to  go  to  a  point  due 
north  of  your  transit  man  when  the  ground  is  open 
or  on  a  single  slope.  But  when  the  sight  through  the 
transit  is  to  leap  a  canon  full  of  trees  and  brush, 
and  is  to  dodge  far  up  the  opposite  slope  through  the 
big  rocks,  it  requires  considerable  judgment  to 
thread  your  way  over  and  through  and  around  all 
these  obstacles  and  then  finally  to  plant  yourself 
in  the  line  of  sight.  Furthermore  Jack  was  intelli 
gent.  He  learned  quickly.  The  reversal  of  the 
rod  for  long-target  readings  he  fathomed  by  observa 
tion  before  Tom  had  learned  how  by  instruction. 
He  caught  on  where  and  when  to  blaze  trees  along 
the  line.  And  he  was  always  ready  to  work. 

Not  so,  Charley,  the  other  Indian.  Charley  was 
the  best-natured  animal  I  ever  encountered;  and  he 
was  exceedingly  comical  to  look  upon.  Otherwise 
he  was  not  valuable.  He  had  a  face  round  and 
shiny  as  a  copper  harvest  moon,  with  a  few  spiky 
little  hairs  by  way  of  moustache  indicating  an  ap 
proximate  centre.  His  blue  jeans  trousers  hung 
around  his  hips,  and  above  them  sagged  the  most 
wonderful  and  wobbly  corporation  ever  partly 
concealed  beneath  a  cotton  shirt.  Charley's  sole 
job  was  as  a  mark  to  back-sight  on.  All  he  had  to 


THE  CABIN 

do  was  to  stand  bolt  upright,  holding  a  peeled  wand 
perpendicular  to  a  stake,  while  the  Surveyor  verified 
his  instrument's  direction  by  squinting  back  along 
the  line  he  had  already  made.  Somebody  had  to 
perform  this  simple  task;  and  it  might  as  well  be 
Charley.  After  the  Surveyor  had  waved  both  arms 
to  signify  "all  right,"  Charley  would  wallow  and 
heave  and  pant  until  he  had  caught  up  with  the  tran 
sit.  Then  he  would  sink  on  a  log,  wipe  his  brow, 
and  grin  with  so  amiable  a  triumph  that  we  could  not 
help  laughing. 

Nevertheless,  there  were  times  when  the  Indian 
in  Charley  flashed  forth  a  hint  of  its  quality.  Once 
our  line  ran  us  two  or  three  thousand  feet  down  the 
mountain-side  over  a  fearfully  rough  and  steep 
country.  When  we  had  tied  to  our  corner  down 
there,  we  had  to  climb  back.  It  was  a  grind,  for 
the  brush  was  thick,  the  slope  very  steep,  and  the 
high  altitude  caught  at  our  wind.  In  the  intervals  of 
rest  we  had  a  good  deal  of  fun  over  Charley's  predic 
ament.  Pretty  soon  that  aborigine  dropped  behind. 

"Charley  goin'  die,"  remarked  Jack  cheerfully. 

We  toiled  on.  After  a  long  time  we  came  in  sight 
of  the  top  of  the  ridge.  On  the  summit  stood  Char 
ley,  who  greeted  us  with  a  loud  and  joyous  whoop. 
It  is  only  fair  to  state  that  we  were  at  the  time  headed 
toward  lunch. 


THE  SURVEYORS 

Charley  was  always  able  to  accomplish  marvellous 
feats  when  it  came  to  a  question  of  quitting  time  or 
of  grub.  The  Supervisor  tells  a  story  of  having 
once  seen  Charley  run  down  a  brush  rabbit!  It 
happened  generally  that  we  finished  our  day's  work 
at  one  of  the  old  survey  corners.  That  made  a  good 
starting-point  for  the  next  morning.  Charley's 
thick  head  gradually  evolved  the  idea  that,  in  this 
game,  corner  meant  quit.  One  morning  we  finished 
a  half-mile  line  about  ten  o'clock,  and  at  once  set 
about  looking  for  the  old  witness  trees  of  the  "es 
tablished"  corner.  These,  as  I  shall  later  explain, 
are  often  exceedingly  difficult  to  find.  Charley  was 
very  active  in  the  search  —  and  successful!  He  led  us 
to  those  old  witness  trees  with  pride,  and  capered 
with  delight,  and  grinned  expansively,  and  generally 
acted  as  tickled  as  a  dog  that  has  caught  a  rat.  We 
made  our  computations,  and  arose  to  continue. 

"What!"  cried  Charley  aghast;  "we  no  quit  'um 
here  ?  He  corner!" 

Poor  old  Charley  could  not  understand,  and  for 
the  rest  of  the  day  he  entertained  dark  suspicions  of 
us.  We  were  not  playing  fair.  Here  he  had  won 
the  game  by  finding  a  corner,  and  we  declined  to 
quit! 

Charley  was  certainly  a  marvellous  eater.  We 
lunched  one  day  at  the  lumber  camp.  It  was  a  good 

253 


THE  CABIN 

meal,  and  varied.  Charley  ate  one  thing  at  a  time. 
He  would  heap  his  plate  full  of  meat,  and  eat  that. 
Then  he  piled  it  with  sweet  potatoes,  and  devoured 
them.  In  turn  he  got  away  with  a  plateful  each  of 
meat,  potatoes,  corn,  bread  and  gravy,  tomatoes. 
Then  he  passed  on  to  desserts  —  three  kinds  of  pie, 
doughnuts,  bread  pudding,  preserved  apricots, 
stewed  plums.  He  finished  with  a  chunk  of  very 
sweet  chocolate  cake,  and  pushed  back  his  chair 
with  a  sigh.  Then  his  twinkling  little  eyes  fell  on 
a  dish,  hitherto  concealed  from  him,  at  the  other 
end  of  the  table.  It  contained  a  mess  of  red  beans 
swimming  in  watery  grease,  and  several  chunks  of 
salt  side-pork. 

"Pass  'um  beans!"  said  Charley  firmly. 

Our  task  was  to  run  a  certain  portion  of  the  line 
around  the  company* s  timber  holdings.  To  do  so 
we  had  first  of  all  to  find  a  section  corner  from  which 
to  start.  This  was  an  affair  of  some  difficulty. 

Probably  most  of  you  know  what  a  corner  is. 
For  the  benefit  of  others  I  will  describe  briefly. 

The  original  Government  surveys  are  official  for 
the  country  they  covered  and  for  the  details  they 
established.  Nothing  they  did  can  be  changed  or 
altered.  The  field  notes  are  on  record  at  the  land 
offices,  and  the  later  surveyor  must  follow  them. 
Thus  the  earlier  surveys  had  to  do  merely  with  the 

254 


THE  SURVEYORS 

outside  boundaries  of  the  townships,  and  the  corners 
of  the  outside  tier  of  sections  were  marked  and 
described.  Later  the  section  lines  inside  that  town 
ship  were  run.  Then  all  the  section  corners  were 
established,  but  always  with  reference  to  the  town 
ship  lines.  If  the  second  surveyor,  running  a  true 
line  west  from  a  section  corner  through  the  middle 
of  the  township,  should  happen  to  come  out  at  the 
corresponding  corner  on  the  other  side,  well  and 
good.  He  was  lucky.  But  if  he  cut  the  township 
line  north  or  south  of  that  corner,  he  must  modify 
his  line  and  all  his  corners.  In  this  fashion  an 
initial  mistake  means  a  whole  county  cut  bias,  but 
that  is  not  permitted  to  matter.  Less  confusion 
results  from  a  cat-a-corner  section  than  from  a 
multiplicity  of  corners. 

The  establishment  of  section  boundaries  is  as  far 
as  the  Government  goes.  When,  as  in  the  present 
case,  the  private  owner  wants  to  run  through  various 
sections,  following  his  boundaries,  he  engages  a 
county  surveyor  who  establishes  his  interior  one- 
quarter  or  one-eighth  corners,  but  always  with  due 
respect  to  the  results  attained  by  the  men  who  have 
preceded  him. 

Let  us  now  return  to  the  original  surveyor.  He 
ran  through  our  mountains  back  in  the  early  seven 
ties.  From  his  starting  corner  he  ran  a  "true  line" 

2SS 


THE  CABIN 

north,  say.  At  the  end  of  a  half-mile  he  stopped 
to  establish  his  first  quarter-section  corner.  This 
nine  times  out  of  ten  consisted  of  something  like  a 
'  'post  3  feet  long,  4  inches  square,  marked  J  Cor. 
Sec.  VI,  set  in  mound  of  rocks  3  ft.  across  base, 
from  which  bears  N.  by  5°  W.  sugar-pine  42  inches 
dia.  marked  on  S.  side  J  Cor.  B.  T.,  and  S.  18°  E.  fir 
12  in.  dia.  marked  onN.  side  }  Cor.  B.  T."  So  read 
the  field  notes.  This  means  generally  that  the  sur 
veyor  in  question  had  his  men  stick  up  the  post,  lay 
around  it  half  a  dozen  stones  —  rarely  more  —  and 
blaze  two  "witness  trees"  marked  as  above.  He  is 
supposed,  moreover,  to  dig  two  pits  north  and  south 
of  the  corner  as  additional  landmarks.  Invariably 
he  writes  down  "pits  impracticable,"  which  relieves 
him  of  much  labour.  A  section  corner  is  the  same 
except  that  the  post  is  larger,  and  there  are  four 
witness  trees  —  at  each  point  of  the  compass  - 
instead  of  two.  Note  these  facts:  that  "the  mound 
of  rocks"  peters  down  to  as  few  as  will  surround  the 
post;  that  in  my  experience  the  pits  are  invariably 
"impracticable";  that  the  witness  or  bearing  trees 
(hence  the  "B.  T.")  are  blazed  low  where  a  man 
can  swing  an  axe  most  comfortably. 

Time  passes.  The  manzanita,  chinquapin,  and 
snowbrush  perhaps  spread  their  mantle  abroad. 
Snow,  rain,  wind,  frost  exercise  turn-about  their 

256 


THE  SURVEYORS 

disintegrating  influences.  Sheep  and  cattle  pass, 
thrusting  the  beautiful,  peeled  new  post  from  the 
perpendicular.  The  next  heavy  snow  flattens  it 
to  earth.  The  "mound  of  rocks"  sinks  into  the 
leaf  mould,  covers  itself  with  moss,  drapes  itself  in 
brush.  The  fresh  blazes  on  the  witness  trees  first 
glaze  themselves  over  with  a  transparent  film  of 
pitch;  then  slowly  year  by  year  the  bark  draws  its 
edges  together  across  the  wound  until  at  last  the  gap 
is  closed.  Underneath,  the  white  tree  wood  adds 
its  annual  rings,  until  at  the  last  all  that  is  to  be 
discovered  of  that  original  broad,  fresh  carved  sur 
face  is  a  narrow  perpendicular  wrinkle,  surrounded 
by  bark  the  least  bit  lighter  in  tone  than  the  rest. 
In  all  probability  the  growth  of  the  forest  has  further 
more  risen  to  screen  it.  And  that  is  the  "corner" 
you  must  find  before  your  work  can  be  accepted. 

It  is  fun,  this  game.  You  have  in  hand  your  hasty 
field  notes,  jotted  down  in  the  absorption  of  the 
day's  work  nearly  forty  years  ago.  It  babbles  of 
brooks  "3  links  wide,  course  S.  W.,"  and  of  trees 
"thirty  inches  dia."  The  brooks  have  long  since 
dried  into  stringer  meadows,  perhaps;  and  the  trees 
probably  look  back  with  scorn  on  their  youthful 
slenderness  of  the  thirty  inches.  The  party  is 
scattered  in  all  directions  through  the  fragrant 
forest,  spying  microscopically  for  the  faintest  in- 

257 


THE  CABIN 

dication  that  man  has  preceded  it  into  this  apparently 
virgin  fastness.  To  the  novice  the  whole  affair  of 
that  long-past  labour  seems  so  futile!  All  summer 
these  men  worked,  and  made  their  records  for  all 
time;  and  in  the  short  space  of  two  generations  the 
forest  has  calmly  obliterated  them.  What  would 
another  generation  of  it  mean  ?  We  must  be  just 
in  time  to  secure  these  old  records  from  total 
extinction,  thinks  the  novice. 

And  finally,  one  or  the  other  of  the  party  utters  a 
whoop.  We  all  gather  to  his  call.  In  triumph  he 
points  to  the  wrinkle  of  the  old  blaze.  "  Sugar  pine 
42  in.  diameter"  reads  the  Surveyor.  "She's  grown 
since.  Now  rustle  out  your  fir."  That  is  a  short 
matter. 

And  then  comes  the  wonder  of  it  all.  Jack  sets 
to  work  chopping  carefully  above  and  below  the  old 
scar.  Inch  after  inch  he  cuts  into  the  tree,  the  white 
chips  flying.  With  a  final  wrench,  a  long  slab  falls 
away.  There  is  the  weather-beaten  old  blaze, 
coated  with  the  transparent  varnish  of  the  dried 
pitch,  its  carving  as  distinct  and  clear-cut  as  the  day 
it  was  made.  And  on  the  slab  of  solid  wood  Jack 
has  cut  out  are  those  carved  letters  reversed  and  in 
relief,  like  printers'  type.  I  have  seen  such  slabs 
as  much  as  eight  inches  thick.  The  tree  has  taken 
up  its  growth  as  though  nothing  had  happened,  but 

258 


THE  SURVEYORS 

first  it  spread  its  thin  varnish  between  the  new  wood 
and  the  old  in  order  that  for  all  time  the  Record 
might  be  preserved.  As  long  as  the  forest  shall 
endure,  so  long  will  that  record  stand,  so  long  will 
the  first  man's  successes  and  mistakes,  his  care  and 
his  carelessness,  the  slip  of  his  scribing  tool  be 
cherished  on  the  tablets  of  the  Witness.  The  next 
generation  would  only  have  to  chop  a  little  deeper; 
that  is  all. 

In  the  mean  time  the  rest  of  us  have  been  prowling 
around  the  brush  while  the  Surveyor  sets  his  transit 
to  determine  the  exact  location  of  the  corner  by  the 
directions  from  the  witness  trees.  In  the  middle  of 
a  bunch  of  chinquapins  we  stumble  over  three  or 
four  scattered  stones.  It  seems  incredible  that 
these  should  represent  the  "mound  of  rocks,"  yet 
in  a  moment  Jack  holds  up  a  little  fragment  of  dried, 
cracked  and  decaying  wood.  It  is  exactly  like  the 
thousands  of  limb  fragments  scattered  everywhere, 
except  that,  among  almost  precisely  similar  scorings, 
we  make  out  two  straight  lines  at  an  angle  to  each 
other.  Worms  do  not  score  in  straight  lines.  There 
fore  we  know  that  we  are  looking  upon  the  marks  of 
the  old  surveyor's  scribe;  that  they  are  some  part  of 
that  "J  Cor.  Sec.  VI";  and  that  this  fragment  lying 
in  the  hollow  of  Jack's  hand  represents  the  "post 
3  feet  long  and  4  inches  square/' 

259 


THE  CABIN 

It  is  exceedingly  interesting  thus  to  follow  up  a 
man  after  a  lapse  of  forty  years.  Doing  the  same 
work  that  he  did,  and  in  the  same  way,  it  is  as  easy 
to  read  his  day  as  though  he  had  passed  only  the 
month  before.  He  made  his  petty  mistakes,  and 
was  unaware  of  them,  or  forgot  them;  the  forest 
remembered.  We  can  tell  when  he  was  getting 
tired;  where  he  guessed;  where  he  shrugged  away 
little  responsibilities  and  accuracies.  It  was  always 
very  evident  where  one  man's  survey  left  off  and 
another's  began.  The  individuality  of  the  work 
was  apparent. 

"Ran  east  on  true  line  between  Sections  24  and 
25,"  went  the  notes,  "79  chains  65  links.  Estab 
lished  \  corner  at  40  chains/'  Alas  for  veracity!  So 
it  was  reported,  so  paid.  The  maps  were  filed  and 
accumulated  dust.  Perhaps  the  surveyor  has  grown 
gray,  and  celebrated,  and  bigger  than  the  old,  wild 
job  through  the  wilderness:  who  knows?  But  now 
after  forty  years  the  forest  silently  bears  witness 
against  him.  Old  surveyor,  you  did  not  run  79 
chains  65  links  east.  You  ran  40  chains  and 
established  your  quarter-corner,  and  went  on  800 
feet.  Then  it  was  between  three  and  four  of  an 
October  afternoon;  you  looked  down  the  deep  hole 
into  which  the  line  dropped.  It  was  too  late,  you 
were  too  tired,  to  tackle  that  five  hundred  yards  or 

260 


THE  SURVEYORS 

so.  You  did  not  want  to  come  away  back  there 
next  day  just  for  that  short  distance;  so  you  sat  you 
down,  probably  on  top  this  very  rock,  and  computed 
how  far  it  must  be  to  the  township  line! 

How  do  we  know  ?  Because  the  corner  is  actually 
40  chains  from  the  west;  we  found  it  so.  But  it  is 
not  within  five  hundred  feet  of  79  chains  and  65 
links  from  the  township  line.  This  happened  to  be 
a  "short  section,"  and  you  would  have  placed  the 
quarter  stake  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  farther 
west,  had  you  measured  the  whole  distance.  As  for 
the  rest,  we  know  where  you  must  have  started; 
you  would  have  arrived  at  the  bluff  by  the  middle 
of  the  afternoon;  this  rock  is  the  handiest  on  which 
to  sit;  and  your  field  notes  show  that  the  scene  of  yout 
next  work  lay,  not  near  here,  but  across  the  town-* 
ship.  Besides,  we  felt  pretty  tired  ourselves  whei\ 
we  looked  down  into  that  hole. 

We  were  up  and  out  very  early.  The  crew  stayed 
at  the  lumber  camp,  while  I,  of  course,  lived  at  the 
Cabin.  Thus  we  had  to  converge  at  the  point  where 
we  had  left  our  work  the  night  before.  At  sundown, 
or  a  little  before,  we  would  quit.  Then  it  became 
necessary  to  cut  across  country  to  our  respective 
habitations. 

In  this  a  curious  distinction  made  itself  evident:  — 
that  between  riding  through  a  country  with  the 

261 


THE  CABIN 

sole  object  of  getting  somewhere,  and  surveying  a 
mathematically  straight  line. 

In  one  case  you  pay  slight  attention  to  details  and 
much  to  generalities.  You  care  little  for  the  lesser 
landmarks,  such  as  burned  stubs,  curious  rocks, 
and  the  like.  No  matter  how  unusual  they  may  be, 
your  recollection  of  them  is  likely  to  be  duplicated 
a  dozen  times  a  day.  If  you  depend  on  them,  you 
are  speedily  lost.  But  the  direction  of  main  ridges 
and  the  general  trend  of  their  laterals,  the  course  of 
streams,  the  situation  of  "pockets,"  the  slopes  of 
the  country,  "the  lay  of  the  land,"  in  short,  are 
of  the  utmost  importance.  All  day  you  are  busily 
engaged  in  constructing  a  mental-relief  map  on 
which  you  can  look  down  and  to  which  you  can 
refer  new  features  as  you  come  across  them. 

In  a  country  of  broad  outlooks  this  is  not  difficult. 
The  nearest  peak  will  furnish  you  a  vantage-ground 
from  which  to  understand  the  framework  for  a 
week's  journeying.  Then  you  are  equipped  to 
plunge  down  into  the  canons  and  forests.  Even  if 
everything  goes  wrong,  and  you  get  all  tangled  up, 
you  can,  by  a  little  earnest  visualizing,  fit  the  dis 
crepancies  into  the  plan  of  what  you  have  actually 
seen. 

But  in  a  densely  forested  mountain  country  the 
task  has  an  added  difficulty  in  that  you  will  be  forced 

262 


THE  SURVEYORS 

to  substitute,  for  this  first  bird's-eye  view,  a  synthesis 
of  your  own.  You  must  bring  to  your  assistance  all 
your  experience.  From  the  single  bone  you  must, 
like  Cuvier,  construct  the  whole  animal.  Such  a 
combination  of  ridge  and  water-source  must  in  this 
sort  of  country  mean  such  a  general  scheme  of 
things.  Then  you  keep  your  eyes  open  for  corrob- 
oration.  If  that  corroboration  fails,  or  if  your 
hypothesis  is  flatly  denied  by  the  next  hard  physical 
fact,  you  must  figure  out  a  new  one  on  the  basis  of 
what  you  know  about  all  three.  The  test  comes 
when,  trusting  in  the  mental-relief  map  you  have 
constructed  out  of  fragmentary  operations,  you 
strike  across  country  you  have  never  seen,  to  reach 
some  spot  you  have  never  visited. 

Nothing  affords  one  greater  satisfaction  than  to 
find  one's  reasoning  has  been  correct.  Nothing  is 
more  confusing  than  to  fail.  Nevertheless,  practice 
and  experience  give  most  men  a  considerable  facility. 
Of  course  they  do  not  analyze  matters  as  I  have  done, 
but  the  elements  of  the  case  are  always  the  same. 
Such  men  are  said  to  have  a  good  sense  of  direction. 
They  have  —  plus  a  heap  of  experience. 

While  I  am  on  the  subject,  let  me  add  one  word: 
no  man  lives  who  cannot  be  lost  somewhere  and 
sometime.  The  surer  he  is  that  he  will  never  get 
lost  anywhere  at  any  time,  the  surer  I  would  be  in 

263 


THE  CABIN 

regard  to  the  truth  of  my  statement  as  respects  that 
particular  man.  Of  course  a  woodsman  would 
never  stay  lost;  but  the  time  surely  comes  when  the 
country  is  strange  and  the  ways  out  absolutely  do  not 
exist.  A  few  moments'  abstraction  or  inattention 
at  a  critical  point  will  do  it,  especially  if  the  in 
attention  is  complete  —  that  is,  if  the  subconscious 
mind,  too,  is  absent  from  its  post.  When  a  man 
tells  me  he  has  never  been  lost,  I  conclude  one  of 
two  things:  either  he  has  not  had  really  extended 
experience,  or  he  is  not  entirely  frank,  either  with 
himself  or  with  me. 

When  following  a  transit,  however,  the  opposite 
state  of  affairs  obtains.  Here  you  are  tied  to  your 
instrument.  However  the  country  lies,  you  go 
due  north  —  or  south,  or  east,  or  west,  as  the  case 
may  be.  Generalities  are  of  no  interest  except  as 
their  features  cross  the  narrow  straight  line  of  your 
progress  —  except  as  they  interpose  canons,  ravines, 
streams,  brush,  or  hills  to  your  onward  march.  Your 
task  is  to  open  a  straight  "sight"  for  the  surveyor. 
You  are  very  much  interested  in  small  details;  in 
fact,  a  single  feathery  twig  may  blot  the  crossbars 
of  the  glass.  It  is  a  game  of  almost  complete  ab 
sorption.  When  night  falls  you  look  about  you  on 
a  strange  country.  Between  this  and  your  last 
observation  for  your  mental-relief  map,  a  day's 

264 


THE  SURVEYORS 

work  has  intervened.  You  straighten  your  back 
and  look  about  you. 

"Well,  which  way  home  ?"  is  the  invariable  ques 
tion,  and  it  is  well  to  guess  right,  for  darkness  is 
near  at  hand. 

It  is  a  game,  like  the  hunt  for  old  corners,  and  its 
winning  brings  a  mild  victor's  satisfaction,  as  well 
as  a  warm  and  early  supper. 

The  day's  work  itself  was  full  of  variety.  On 
arriving  at  our  last  station  of  the  day  before,  we  at 
once  prepared  for  the  next  "sight."  Tom,  with  his 
brilliantly  checkered  rod,  went  ahead.  Jack  and 
I  cut  out  anything  that  interfered  with  the  clear 
sight  through  the  little  transit  telescope.  Some 
times  we  had  luck.  Tom  could  retire  six  or  seven 
hundred  feet  down  a  long  fresh  aisle  or  across  a 
canon.  Again  the  big  trees  and  rocks,  or  the  brows 
of  hills,  or  a  tangle  too  large  to  cut  out  would  bring 
the  rodman  to  within  a  few  feet  of  the  instrument. 
Jack  and  I  swung  our  axes  for  an  hour  at  a  time. 
Again  we  had  nothing  to  do  but  saunter  along  the 
high,  open,  rocky  ridges,  occasionally  blazing  a  tree 
to  indicate  the  course  of  the  boundary.  Always  the 
Surveyor  clung  stoutly  to  his  transit. 

The  Surveyor,  as  1  intimated  some  space  back, 
was  game  as  a  badger.  He  came  into  this  rather 
high  altitude  directly  from  the  plains,  and  he  was 

265 


THE  CABIN 

not  in  the  best  of  shape  for  mountain  travel.  Never 
theless,  he  stuck  to  it,  and  climbed  all  the  steeps, 
and  worked  through  without  complaint  until  night 
fall,  carrying  over  his  shoulder  that  piece  of  field 
ordnance  of  his,  and  a  little  hand-satchel  containing 
his  notes  and  computation  tables.  Among  other 
things  he  brought  with  him  a  mule  fully  sixteen 
hands  high,  on  which  he  used  occasionally  to  ride 
to  and  from  camp,  when  camp  was  very  distant 
The  first  time  he  mounted  this  tremendous  animal, 
it  bucked  with  him.  The  handle  of  the  hand-satchel 
broke,  and  papers  flew  like  flakes  in  a  snow-storm. 
The  Surveyor  stayed  with  it,  and  only  dismounted 
when  one  of  us  seized  the  animal's  head.  We 
loosened  the  back  cinch,  as  a  possible  cause  of  war, 
and  quite  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  Surveyor  started 
to  remount. 

"I  don't  know  as  he'll  let  me  ride  him,"  was  his 
only  remark. 

The  Surveyor  was  to  me  a  marvel  of  patience  as 
respects  Tom.  Tom  was  eager  to  do  the  right 
thing,  but  rattle-brained.  He  listened  to  the  first 
three  words  of  direction,  instantly  supplied  his  own 
conclusion  —  generally  a  wrong  one —  and  acted 
on  it.  Then  it  took  a  strong  counter-suggestion 
to  head  him  right.  That  counter-suggestion  I 
should  have  proffered  with  a  club.  From  our 

266 


THE  SURVEYORS 

position   in   advance,    the    usual    interchange    was 
about  like  this: 

Surveyor  (shouting):  "Try  to  get  as  far  back 
against  that  tree  as  you  can.  No,  this  side  the  tree. 
Not  so  far !  No,  a  little  at  a  time.  No,  not  that  side, 
this  side." 

Tom  (excitedly) :  "  Well,  I  can't  tell  what  you  do 
want.  Why  in  hell  don't  you  tell  me  just  where  you 
do  want  me?" 

Surveyor  (sweetly  and  patiently):  "That's  just 
what  I'm  trying  to  do,  Tom.  Try  again." 

The  man  was  always  wrong;  and  he  repeated 
stupid  mistakes.  I  wondered  how  the  Surveyor 
could  possibly  present  to  him  always  that  front  of 
calm  and  patient  placidity.  One  day  I  happened 
to  be  back  with  the  instrument.  Then  I  discov 
ered  that  the  conversation  went  more  like  this,  the 
italicized  portions  being  uttered  in  a  low  voice. 

Survey or :"Try  to  get  as  far  back  against  that  tree 
as  you  can,  you  mutton-headed  mud-turtle.  No,  this 
side  —  lucky  there's  only  two  sides  or  you'd  get  it  wrong 
oftener,  you  thick-witted  idiot.  Not  so  far.  Of 
course  you'd  do  it  wrong.  No,  a  little  at  a  time.  / 
wonder  how  many  times  I've  told  you  that.  I  ought 
to  get  a  phonograph  and  make  you  carry  it.  No, 
not  that  side,  this  side,  as  I  lefore  remarked  eight 
thousand  separate,  distinct,  and  several  times'9 

267 


THE  CABIN 

Which  seemed  to  me  an  admirable  system.  It 
relieved  the  Surveyor's  mind  without  inducing  a 
row.  Tom  was  incurable;  and  the  Surveyor,  with 
a  large  wisdom,  had  early  realized  that  fact. 

Our  line  soon  developed  that  obstinate,  resistant, 
almost  inimical  personality  so  often  met  in  natural 
forces.  It  invariably  crossed  the  highest,  steepest 
hills  and  the  deepest,  most  precipitous  canons, 
when  easy  "sags"  and  passes  were  just  off  its  course. 
All  day  it  would  cling  to  the  open  rocky  ridges  while 
the  sun  shone  clear  and  warm.  Then  it  would  rain 
over  night.  Next  day  we  would  find  ourselves  neck- 
deep  in  acre  after  acre  of  shower- wet  brush.  In 
three  steps  we  would  be  soaked  through,  and  would 
so  remain.  By  noon  the  sun  would  have  dried  the 
bushes;  whereupon  ironically  we  would  emerge  once 
more  into  the  open  country. 

But  always  we  made  our  day's  distance,  and  when 
night  approached,  though  tired,  had  left  our  records 
in  the  keeping  of  the  forest  for  all  time.  Back 
tramped  the  friend  who  was  then  visiting  us  at  the 
Cabin  and  I,  to  where  we  had  last  left  our  horses. 
As  the  sun  dipped  lower,  we  rode  down  through  the 
silent  forest. 

At  this  time  of  day  the  sunlight  falls  in  a  yellow 
gold  on  the  distant  ridges  glimpsed  through  the  trees, 
a  yellower,  weirder,  deeper  gold  than  I  have  ever 

268 


THE  SURVEYORS 

seen  elsewhere.  The  shadows  rise  cool  from  the 
darkening  ravines.  Twilight  comes  swiftly  in  these 
latitudes,  and  as  swiftly  gives  place  to  night.  By  the 
time  we  had  reached  the  summit  of  the  ridge  above 
the  Cabin,  Billy  had  already  lit  the  lamp.  We 
yelled  an  announcement  of  our  coming;  the  dogs 
cut  across  lots  through  the  brush;  Flapjack,  leaving 
his  customary  position  in  the  rear,  tinkled  ahead 
and  merrily  leaped  the  fence  to  the  meadow. 


2*9 


THE  JOURNEY 


XXI 

THE  JOURNEY 

IT  TAKES  as  long  to  go  to  the  Cabin  as  it  would 
to  go  to  Chicago.  The  first  three  days  are 
very  hot.  On  a  cool  fresh  noon  the  thermometer 
stands  from  90  to  95  degrees;  on  warm  days  from 
100  to  105  degrees;  and  on  hot  days  from  that  on 
until  the  mercury  explodes  the  bulb.  This  is  fine  for 
dried  fruits,  of  which  the  production  is  enormous; 
for  umbrella  trees,  with  the  black  shade;  and  for 
horned  toads,  of  which,  however,  the  visible  supply 
is  gradually  decreasing.  It  is  not  so  desirable  for 
him  who  rides;  and  still  less  pleasant  for  him  whose 
unfortunate  lines  follow  (over  dusty  roads)  the  slow 
progress  of  the  stage.  The  heat  beats  from  the  hills 
and  cuts  as  from  an  opened  furnace  door;  the  dust, 
wafted  by  a  gentle  following  current  of  air,  en 
velops  the  vehicle  in  a  cloud;  the  countryside  is 
parched  and  brown,  awaiting  the  annual  rains; 
and  the  ground  squirrels  and  burrowing  owls  and 
coyotes  and  brush  birds  merely  irritate  by  a  useless 
and  senseless  activity.  Moreover,  the  stage  leaves 

2/S 


THE  CABIN 

the  railroad  at  six  in  the  morning,  and  drags  uphill 
until  five  of  the  afternoon;  which  is  a  long  time. 

The  first  two  hours  are  not  so  bad.  Even  in  the 
hot  country  the  early  morning  keeps  a  certain  fresh 
ness  of  the  night.  The  horses  are  lively,  the  country 
flat.  Generally  we  let  the  dogs  run,  and  they  range 
wide,  chasing  madly  after  ground  squirrels.  But 
by  the  time  we  reach  the  foothills  the  peculiar 
burning-glass  quality  of  the  sun  is  beginning  to 
strike  in.  The  horses  fall  to  a  walk.  The  dogs  drop 
in  behind,  exhibiting  inches  of  pink  dripping  tongues, 
Seat  cushions  get  hard.  Then  we  round  a  corner 
and  stop  opposite  a  broad  field  between  two  hills. 
In  the  distance  is  a  barn  from  which  emerges  an 
old  man  leading  fresh  horses.  When  he  has  de 
livered  these  animals  to  the  driver,  he  brings  to  us 
the  basket  he  is  carrying,  from  which  —  and  from 
the  great  kindness  of  his  heart  —  he  distributes  fresh 
figs  or  peaches  and  apricots  according  to  the  month. 
This  old  man  has  a  long  white  beard,  and  a  ruddy 
skin,  and  a  cheerful  blue  eye,  and  is  the  first  of  our 
landmarks. 

For,  as  we  go  on,  we  lose  our  sense  of  propor 
tion  as  respects  time.  No  one  can  tell,  after  the 
heat  has  begun,  whether  it  is  ten  o'clock  or  two. 
Generally  it  feels  as  if  it  should  be  six  o'clock 
of  day  after  to-morrow.  The  only  means  of  esti- 

374 


THE  JOURNEY 

mating  progress  is  by  the  landmarks.  After  we 
had  been  over  the  stage  ride  once  or  twice  these 
become  unforgettably  impressed.  They  are  ab 
surdly  simple.  There  were,  for  instance,  the  Surly 
Family,  who  never  answered  our  greetings;  the 
House  with  the  Twisted  Tree  as  a  verandah  post; 
the  Dog  who  comes  after  the  Mail;  the  Two- 
Storied  Adobe;  the  Wabbly  Bridge;  the  old  Gold 
Workings;  the  Leaning  Chimney,  of  stone;  the  First 
Pine;  and  as  many  more  as  you  please.  Until  we 
had  been  over  the  road  five  or  six  times,  these  land 
marks  held  to  us  no  sequence.  We  could  not  have 
told  you  which  came  first  or  second  or  fourth  or  last. 
They  were  so  many  isolated,  distinct  pictures. 
Merely  we  were  certain  that  somewhere  in  the  course 
of  the  long  hot  day  they  existed.  Sometimes,  toward 
the  close  of  the  journey,  hoping  to  persuade  our 
selves  we  were  almost  arrived,  we  tried  to  think  we 
had  been  mistaken.  Certainly  we  had  not  passed 
the  Two  Old  Men's  Cabin,  with  the  fig  trees  and  the 
flowing  well;  but  we  must  have  been  mistaken. 
We  had  seen  them  somewhere  else.  The  journey's 
end  must  be  over  that  ridge,  and  between  here  and 
there  was  obviously  no  more  room  for  landmarks. 
So  we  tried  to  argue  the  non-existence  of  the  Two 
Old  Men;  but  inexorably  at  last  they  would  shoulder 
their  way  into  the  weary  hours  of  our  day.  The 

275 


THE  CABIN 

journey's  end  was  not  over  that  ridge;  our  land 
marks  declined  to  be  wished  away. 

But  though  we  grew  wearier  as  the  day  advanced, 
compensations  came  with  the  hours.  We  were 
climbing  slowly  but  surely,  and  the  oak  trees,  the 
buckthorn,  the  chaparral  were  constantly  thicken 
ing  and  growing  taller.  Rocks  covered  with  lichens, 
red  as  paint,  outcropped.  Ravines  and  deep  gashes 
cleft  the  hills.  Running  water  flowed  in  what  lower 
down  would  have  been  dry  barrancas.  From  one 
point  we  had  seen  the  bold  rocky  serrated  line  of 
Shuteye,  the  snow  still  clinging  to  its  crest.  And  as 
we  drew  slowly  but  surely  nearer,  the  azure  of  our 
Ridge  deepened  to  violet,  then  to  slate;  and  at  last, 
with  the  sunset  light,  to  the  deep,  beautiful  rose- 
pink  and  amethyst  of  evening. 

And  then  we  strike  a  little  down-grade.  The 
horses  trot  ahead.  We  cross  two  bridges,  and  pull  up 
opposite  the  shaded  broad-roofed  house.  Aunt  Belle 
comes  out  to  greet  us.  We  descend  stiffly,  and  shake 
ourselves,  and  wonder  if  we  will  ever  be  able  to  get 
all  the  dust  off.  For  we  are  coated  with  it,  our  faces 
are  ash-gray  with  it,  at  every  move  we  smoke  with  it. 

Next  morning  we  saddle  up,  pack  Flapjack,  and 
set  ourselves  to  the  last  steep  climb. 

At  first  the  chaparral,  the  manzanita,  the  digger 
pines  follow  us.  But  as  we  mount  the  steep  side, 

276 


THE  JOURNEY 

slowly  the  vegetation  changes.  Yellow  pines,  in 
creasingly  dense,  replace  the  scattered  diggers. 
Here  and  there  a  dogwood's  fresh  green  and  the 
broad  cream  petals  of  its  blossoms  shine  in  bright 
contrast.  The  light  olive  of  snowbrush,  the  vivid 
green  of  bear  clover,  the  polished  leaves  of  chinqua 
pin,  perhaps  even  a  tiny  patch  of  azaleas  offer  a 
great  refreshment  to  the  eye.  There  is  no  more 
brown  and  powdery  grass.  The  air,  while  still 
warm,  bears  on  its  tiny  wandering  breezes  just  a 
taste  of  crispness.  Still,  the  plains  and  foothills 
lie  below  us,  and  the  breath  of  them  follows  us 
scorching;  the  trees  on  the  slope  are  of  ordinary  size 
-  we  are  even  yet  in  California. 

But  after  three  hours  or  so  we  make  a  last  scramble 
over  the  rim. 

Around  us  are  the  Trees,  our  great,  beautiful 
Trees.  The  grass  is  green,  the  water  sparkling,  the 
birds  shouting  aloud  with  joy,  the  sky  blue.  Flowers 
are  all  about  us,  even  to  the  edges  of  the  melting  snow 
banks.  California  has  been  whisked  away.  We  are 
back  again  in  our  magic  country,  and  other  places  are 
not.  It  is  as  sudden  as  that;  the  mere  topping  of  a  hill. 

We  ride  along  the  old  road,  spying  eagerly  for  the 
little  changes.  Winter,  the  gardener  of  these  mighty 
domains,  has  been  at  work,  pruning  the  limbs  with 

277 


THE  CABIN 

his  shears  whose  twin  blades  are  the  Wind  and  the 
Snow.  The  fragments  lie  everywhere,  but  the  tall, 
noble  trees  tower  stronger  and  straighter  for  the 
shearing.  Only  here  and  there  one  of  the  brittle 
firs  has  lost  a  top  or  fallen  full  length  to  the  ground. 
We  spy  out  the  strange,  brilliant  flames  of  the  snow- 
plant;  we  listen  for  the  hermit  thrush;  we  note  the 
job  of  axe  work  old  Winter  has  left  us  to  do  before 
wheels  can  traverse  our  road.  Over  the  skyline, 
down  through  the  long  aisle  of  the  road,  we  espy 
Theophilus.  We  greet  him  with  a  shout. 

Ten  minutes  later,  having  shovelled  the  snow  off  the 
verandah,  we  are  gazing  into  the  darkened  interior. 

"Goodness!     What  a  mess!"  cries  Billy. 

She  hunts  her  stubby  little  broom;  I  get  out  the 
axe.  Before  getting  to  work  we  step  together  to  the 
edge  of  the  verandah  and  look  down  the  vista  of 
the  meadow  to  the  new-young  Spring.  The  peaceful 
accustomedness  of  it  all  descends  softly  on  our  spirits 
like  a  mist.  We  have  never  been  away.  Every 
thing  is  as  it  was.  The  old  life  of  the  great 
spaces  takes  us  familiarly  by  the  hand.  We  do 
our  daily  accustomed  tasks  and  pleasures,  and  at 
night  fall  asleep  in  the  open.  And  then 

Suddenly  we  awaken  late  at  night.  It  is  pitch 
dark,  and  the  wind  is  high.  A  heavy,  swift  rain 


THE  JOURNEY 

is  beating  down  on  us  fiercely.  To  our  sleep- 
numbed  faculties  it  seems  better  to  bear  with  those 
ills  we  have  than  to  rush  into  unknown  evils  of  wet 
brush  on  the  way  to  the  shelter  of  the  Cabin.  There 
fore  we  pull  our  canvas  quite  over  our  heads  and 
snuggle  down  in  the  blankets.  Occasionally  in  a 
half-sleep  we  shrink  from  a  wet  space.  The  pelt 
of  the  rain  lulls  us.  When  we  finally  awaken  after 
daylight,  we  find  the  outside  of  the  canvas  almost 
a  solid  sheet  of  ice. 

That  day  we  notice  several  things;  the  meadow  is 
eaten  down;  the  horses,  restless  for  the  low  country, 
huddle  in  the  upper  fence  corner;  the  birds  have  all 
departed  or  fallen  silent;  the  pine  needles  have  for 
some  weeks  been  sifting  down  as  the  great  trees 
thinned  their  tops  in  preparation  for  snow.  By 
these  signs  we  know  that  the  hour  has  struck. 

Therefore  we  pile  everything  in  the  middle  of  the 
floor,  shutter  the  windows,  board  up  the  fireplace, 
wire  the  gates;  bid  Theophilus  farewell,  and  ride 
away.  Even  before  we  have  surmounted  the  little 
swell  of  our  hill,  the  squirrels  are  swarming  the  shed 
kitchen;  an  impudent  finch  pulls  away  a  chunk  of 
mud  from  our  chimney.  Every  year  there  is  so 
much  to  do  over  again  —  clearing  up  that  which  the 
forest  has  sprinkled  down  over  our  belongings; 
cutting  out  the  dead  trees;  bracing  and  repairing; 

279 


THE  CABIN 

mending  fences;  pruning  encroaching  and  persistent 
growth.  The  thought  will  not  be  stifled  that  per 
haps  we  shall  not  be  able  to  come  one  year  —  and 
another,  and  another.  And  then,  perhaps,  our 
friend  the  Forest  will  conclude  that  we  are  not  com 
ing  back  any  more  and  quite  gently  will  begin  to 
take  the  tiny  clearing  to  herself.  She  can  do  this 
very  swiftly,  adapting  and  changing  what  she  can 
not  absorb.  Billy  thinks  old  Theophilus,  Theoph- 
ilus  the  cynical  and  wise,  will  stand  guard  for  us 
always.  I  respect,  but  do  not  understand,  Theoph 
ilus.  He  is  quite  capable  of  deciding  cynically  to 
ally  himself  with  the  wild  forces.  He  is  indifferent 
And  whether  the  undoubted  Spirit  of  Wisdom  with 
which  he  is  animated  could  hold  its  own  against  the 
Spirit  of  the  Woods,  I  am  not  sure.  Near  the  back 
gate  Billy  has  a  grove  of  pines  two  inches  tall  which 
she  is  cherishing  for  remote  generations.  My  pri 
vate  opinion  is  that  before  these  tiny  seedlings  will 
have  grown  tall  enough  to  cast  a  shadow  over  the 
Cabin,  the  sentinel  pines,  swaying  gently  just  be 
neath  the  sky,  will  signal  their  brothers  of  the  Merced 
to  the  North,  their  sisters  of  the  Kaweah  to  the  South 
that  at  last  these  little  human  activities  are  indeed 
one  "with  Nineveh  and  Tyre." 


280 


NOTE 

In  all  the  extent  of  the  old  White-Pine  belt  of  the  Eastern 
and  Northern  States  the  next  generation  will  be  able  to  look 
upon  no  sample  of  the  forest  that  was.  The  stumps,  even, 
are  rotting  away.  The  yellow  pine  timber  of  the  South  will 
have  vanished  and  left  no  sign.  Your  children's  children 
will  have  to  believe  as  much  as  they  are  able  of  the  descriptions 
to  be  found  in  the  books  they  will  exhume  from  the  libraries. 
This  conclusion  is  not  the  sentimental  imagining  of  a  pessimist. 
The  remaining  pine  forests,  such  as  they  are,  are  in  the  hands 
of  private  owners,  and  will  sooner  or  later  find  their  way  to  the 
lumber  piles.  Replanting  on  an  extensive  scale  is  ultimately 
inevitable;  but  replanting  will  produce  a  crop  of  trees  in  rows, 
not  a  forest. 

This,  I  think,  most  of  us  have  come  to  understand.  What 
we  do  not  realize  is  that  those  of  us  who  have  seen  the  great 
woodlands  of  California  should  rejoice,  for  there  too  the  big 
fellows  are  doomed  to  vanish. 

How  about  our  immense  National  Forests?  How  about 
Conservation  ? 

It  is  true  we  have  set  aside  for  the  public  vast  tracts  of  wood 
land,  but  the  National  Forests  are  for  use  and  not  for  integral 
preservation.  They  are  intended  to  be  lumbered  off,  just  as 
private  holdings  are  meant  to  be  lumbered.  The  only  difference 
is  that  the  Forest  Service  aims  to  cut  the  ripe  trees  in  such  a 
•nanner  as  to  leave  the  woodland  in  a  condition  to  produce  a 


NOTE 

future  supply.  In  the  perfected  use  of  our  resources,  when 
private  holdings  have  been  cut  over,  and  we  turn  for  our  lumber 
to  Government  reserves,  all  the  full-grown  mature  trees  will  be 
harvested.  The  forest  itself  will  be  preserved,  both  as  a  water 
shed  and  as  a  growing  and  perpetual  supply,  but  it  must  neces 
sarily  change  its  character.  The  big  trees  will  all  be  gone;  and 
never  more  will  they  be  seen  again. 

A  moment's  figuring  will  show  why  this  must  be.  Suppose 
an  acre  of  forest  land  will  produce  40,000  board  feet.  In  a 
virgin  forest  this  amount  will  be  comprised  in  say  three  or 
four  huge  trees  four  hundred  years  old.  The  trees  are  cut 
down:  a  new  growth  springs  up.  At  the  end  of  eighty  years 
there  may  be  twenty  trees  cutting  2,000  feet  apiece.  At  one 
hundred  years  five  of  the  twenty  will  have  died  from  over 
crowding,  but  the  fifteen  remaining  will  have  made  sufficient 
growth  to  maintain  the  total  at  about  40,000  feet.  From  this 
time  on  the  rate  of  increase  is  just  about  balanced  by  the  rate  of 
thinning.  Purely  as  a  commercial  proposition  it  is  better 
sense  to  cut  the  twenty  smaller  trees  at  eighty  years  than  td 
wait  for  the  three  or  four  big  ones;  to  harvest  five  crops  in  the 
length  of  time  necessary  to  grow  one  of  the  old-fashioned  sort. 
In  the  conserved  National  Forests  no  more  than  in  the  wasted 
and  slashed  private  holdings  can  the  future  hope  to  look  upon  the 
great  sugar  pines  and  firs  in  the  glory  of  their  primeval  majesty. 

The  only  hope  of  that  is  in  setting  aside  national  parks  for 
their  preservation,  as  we  have  set  aside  national  parks  for  the 
preservation  of  other  things,  such  as  geysers,  battlefields,  canons, 
sequoias,  and  grass.  In  some  of  these  numerous  reservations, 
particularly  in  those  dedicated  to  the  so-called  Big  Trees, 
necessarily  grow  many  specimens  of  the  various  pines  and  firs. 
But  they  are  only  specimens.  To  preserve  intact  the  dignity 

282 


NOTE 

and  majesty  peculiar  to  these  forests  it  would  be  necessary  to 
set  aside  especial  Sugar  Pine  Parks  from  districts  where  such 
species  particularly  flourish;  and  this  has  nowhere  been  done. 
If  somewhere  along  the  Sugar-Pine  belt*  some  wisdom  of 
legislation  or  executive  decree  could  duplicate  the  Muir  Woods 
on  a  greater  scale,  or  the  Sequoia  National  Park  on  a  lesser, 
we  would  avoid  the  aesthetic  mistake  we  made  in  tossing  to 
memory  alone  the  visions  of  our  old  primeval  forests  of  the  East. 
We  had  sense  enough  to  set  aside  a  portion  of  our  sequoias,  but 
that  apparently  was  only  because  of  their  scarcity.  Probably 
sugar  pines  are  now  actually  too  abundant  to  be  bothered  with. 
We  are  rapidly  remedying  that  difficulty. 

*  The  very  best  specimen  of  Sugar  Pine  Forest  in  Government  control  is  situated  oe 
the  south  end  of  Whiskey  Ridge  in  Madera  County.  Plans  are  new  forward  t«  art 
tkis  timber  under  Government  super-vision. 


The  Country  Lire  Press.  Garden  City,  N.  ¥, 


